Magnificent Lasagna and Artificial Worms
by Kristafied
Summary: AU Set post Grave Danger Sara and Nick become closer in the aftermath of Nick's ordeal. Starts as friendship, eventual Snickers. WIP
1. Chapter 1

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Tuesday Morning and the Previous Weekend

It was weird to be back on the night shift. Hell, it was weird to be back at work. Nick scratched absently at one of the ant bite scars on his neck, more out of habit than anything else. Overall, the night had gone fairly well; everyone had been visiting him regularly while he was out on medical leave, so they knew he didn't want a fuss made over his return to the field. Catherine was insisting they all go out to breakfast after shift, however, and although he was exhausted, he would have felt like an ass if he'd refused. Most of the night shift had gone on ahead to the diner; it was just him and Sara in the locker room at the moment, and she'd been quiet all night.

She hadn't been doing much real talking since they'd pulled him out of the ground, Nick mused. He hadn't noticed before; she had been there, in his hospital room, and later at his house, almost every day for at least an hour or so. She would bring him her vegetarian (and, though he hated to admit it, absolutely delicious) lasagne or eggplant parmesan, grumbling that he needed to eat well to feel better, and she usually had some cheesy sports movie she'd thought he would like, and they would sit on his couch, chewing companionably and laughing out loud at _Major League_, _The Longest Yard_, or _Slapshot_. He'd teased her one day that he hadn't known she had even heard of all these sports, let alone movies about them, and she'd just whacked him with a couch pillow and tossed him a copy of _Cool Runnings_. Nick grinned at the memory.

Out of all his friends, she was the only one who had never pushed him to talk about what happened, who had never attempted to discreetly (or in Catherine's case, not-so-discreetly) recommend a therapist who "might be able to help," who had never tried to commiserate or give him an awkward hug. She would simply call him once a day to see if he had plans, and if he didn't, invite herself and her pasta and salad and movies over for a few hours. After the movie was over, she'd help him with the dishes, make sure he had the leftovers properly stowed, toss off a casual, "See you later," and head home, or back to the lab.

Two days ago, when she'd called to check on him, he'd had news. He was dancing around his living room, not that he would have admitted it to anyone, when the phone rang. "Howdy!"

The amused snort at the other end of the line could only be Sara. "Well, someone's in a chipper mood tonight. You taking happy pills or something?"

"Don't need 'em. It is the end of cabin fever, my friend. I am officially cleared to go back in the field; I'll be in Monday night."

He laughed at her unladylike whoop. "Hey, Nick, that's great! It'll be nice to have you back." She paused. "We've, uh, we've all missed you, you know."

Still flying high, Nick hadn't been able to resist the tease, "How can you possibly miss me, Sidle, you're over here bugging me all the time!"

It was like a vacuum suddenly sucked all the air out of the room. He could hear it in the small sound of her voice. "Oh."

The silence was just long enough for him to inhale but not long enough for him to actually get words out. "Sar..."

She cleared her throat and talked right over him. "Listen, Nick, I'd better get going, I promised Grissom I'd be in early tonight. You, uh, you still have leftover lasagne in the fridge if you need it, right?"

"Sara, I'm..."

"Okay, good." She was speaking very fast. "I'll see you Monday night then." Her forced laugh sounded painful. "Enjoy your last weekend as a gentleman of leisure. Take care."

Nick stared at the phone in his hand and listened to the dial tone. Shit. He pressed the disconnect button. That had gone horribly wrong very quickly. For long moments, his eyes fixed on the phone, not really seeing it. Just as he moved his fingers to dial her back, the phone rang in his hand. It was Warrick.

"Hey, man, I heard congratulations are in order! What do you say we go out on the town tonight to celebrate? Sara said she'd cover me if I wanted to take off tonight."

"She did?"

"Yeah, I thought that was totally cool of her. She just called to tell me the good news and she volunteered. Girl's all right, you know."

"Yeah," Nick rubbed his eyes and thumped down on his couch. "Yeah, I know."

He'd barely had time for a shower before Warrick had been banging excitedly on his front door, and after that the evening was a blur. "We need to get you back on nightshift hours, man," had been the excuse to stay out drinking and listening to music until almost five a.m., something Nick hadn't done in years. Judging by the one-sided argument he overheard taking place on his couch at about ten o'clock the next morning, neither had 'Rick. After ten minutes of listening to, "Baby, I... C'mon, Tina, I was just out with Nick... We were celebrating... You were at work last night anyway... No, I'd never..." Nick was trying not to laugh out loud when Warrick knocked on his bedroom door, looking sheepish but striving for cool. "Nick, I'm gonna head out."

"Sounds like it." Nick snickered and pantomimed a bull whip.

Warrick grabbed a wadded-up towel from the top of Nick's hamper and whizzed it across the room. "Aw, shut up, man. Just wait till you get married, you'll see."

"Yeah, well, I think we're all safe from that particular disaster for a while yet."

Warrick had waved over his shoulder and headed for the door. Nick had fallen back to sleep until late afternoon, by which point he had convinced himself he needed to re-pack his truck with work necessities, do laundry, and put together his spare bag for his locker. He managed to ignore his guilty conscience and avoid thinking about Sara until he was packing his "lunch" bag Monday evening before work. Without thinking, he grabbed one of the plastic containers filled with a generous helping of her lasagne, and started to shove it into the soft-sided fabric cooler. He caught sight of the top of the little square and froze. She'd labeled it. He hadn't realized she'd done that. On the top, in her immaculate printing, were the date and the words, "Sara's Magnificent Lasagne."

His hands tightened on the plastic and he let out an involuntary huff of laughter. It was an inside joke. The first few times she'd brought over food, he'd rhapsodized about her cooking: "Sara, that's just magnificent! I had no idea you knew how to cook anything but take-out."

She'd pretended to be offended, but after that it had become a running joke: "I made some of my Magnificent Lasagne, Nick. Know anyone who might be interested in helping me eat it?"

His eyes prickled and he blinked, hard. She'd made it so easy for him. All those afternoons on his couch when she should have been sleeping, all those casual phone calls, all done without giving him any sense of obligation. Contrary to what some people might think, he wasn't usually blind, or oblivious. He'd figured out enough about her background to know she'd survived something pretty awful, although he didn't know exactly what. She never talked about it; Sara always held her emotional cards close to the vest.

Perhaps because of her personal history, she was the only one who'd handled his recovery with absolute grace. Maybe that was why he'd forgotten something he'd figured out years ago: underneath her passionate professional dedication and thorny intellect, beneath all the stubbornness and gun-toting fearlessness and buddy-buddy kidding around, Sara was terribly, terribly shy. She'd rather gnaw off her own hand than overstep her bounds, and until his kidnapping and subsequent recuperation had given the whole team a reason to check on him regularly, she had only once called him for anything other than work. With the exception of that one time after the case of the agoraphobic who was killed by her own sister, all the socializing they'd done had been initiated by someone else. Nick shook his head. God, he was stupid.

Nick put the lasagne in his lunch bag, pausing a moment to run his fingertip over the writing. He was at a loss. He knew he'd hurt her feelings, albeit unintentionally, but it had been so subtle, so much in the subtext of the conversation, that he wasn't sure how to apologize. She'd be mortified if he brought it up directly, and she'd probably deny she even knew what he was talking about, just to save face.

He thought about it all shift. Actually, the distraction of mulling over how to make up for his insensitivity gave him a welcome distraction when Grissom teamed with him for a suspicious auto accident that included a guy who had burned to death trapped in his own car. He'd caught one apologetic glance sent his way when Grissom realized the circumstances of the death, and nipped it in the bud. "It's fine, Gil. I'm okay." He was surprised to realize how much he meant it, and felt a weight he hadn't realized he'd been carrying slip from his shoulders. He could still do his job. He could still do it well, perhaps even better than before.

Nick hadn't seen Sara all shift, even when he'd followed the wrecked car back to the garage, which was one of her usual haunts, and it was the gut-tightening disappointment he'd felt when his voice had echoed unanswered across the empty bay that had started to freak him out. Since when was he disappointed that he didn't get to see Sara? When had she become such a part of his routine that he missed her? _She's your friend, nimrod,_ he chastised himself, grabbing a jumpsuit and pulling on gloves. _She's a good friend, and you know you let her down. Now what are you going to do about it?_

The entire team had finished up around the same time, which Nick doubted was a coincidence, and Catherine had announced that Grissom was taking them all to breakfast. Grissom's head had snapped up from the file he was reading as he walked. "Huh?"

Catherine's cackles had trailed after her as she sauntered toward the lockers. "Meet you all at the diner!"

Warrick and Greg yelled at him to hurry up, but Nick dawdled over changing once he saw Sara slip quietly into the locker room. She gave him a quiet, "Hey, Nick," and a smile that missed her eyes, then turned her back to stow her vest. Their locker doors slammed shut simultaneously, which gave him the excuse he needed to make eye contact and grin, although more self-consciously than usual.

He held the door for her as they walked out, still not speaking, and Nick's brain continued to scramble for a game plan until they passed Grissom's empty office. He looked in and his eye caught on the Big Mouth Billy Bass, permanently silenced since Catherine had disabled the battery housing one shift when Grissom had been giving a lecture in Minneapolis. Without letting himself think about it, he blurted, "Do you fish?"

Sara jumped slightly; apparently she hadn't expected him to speak. She turned her head and raised one eyebrow. "What?"

Warming to the idea that was germinating in his mind, Nick grinned. "I said, 'Do you fish?'"

Sara shot back wryly, "What is that, a trick question? Are you working a case of death by flounder?"

"It's a simple question, Sidle. Have you or have you not ever grabbed a pole, baited a hook, and drowned a worm or two in the name of a fresh trout dinner?"

Both eyebrows were up now, but he could see her lips twitching. "Nicky, you know I'm a vegetarian; why the hell would I go fishing?"

"Aw, come on, Sara, you didn't spring fully-formed from the head of Grissom as a vegetarian. Besides, meat is murder; fish is justifiable homicide."

That did it. A laugh burst past her tightly pursed lips and she stopped walking and leaned against the fire door, chortling helplessly. "I LOVE that bumper sticker. I've been dying for an excuse to get one, and I think you just picked out your Christmas present."

Nick felt himself relax and grin even wider. "You still didn't answer my question, Sidle. You ever been fishing?"

"Nope, can't say I have. I've never understood the attraction to standing around getting eaten up by mosquitoes, sweating to death, trying to catch something I can buy at the supermarket in a far more palatable form."

Nick threw himself through the door to the parking lot, feigning a mortal wound and causing Sara to roll her eyes. He shook his finger at her. "Okay, that's it. After breakfast, you're coming with me out to Lake Mead."

"To engage in a little justifiable homicide?"

"Yep."

"Okay, you talked me into it." Sara grumbled, but he could see her shoulders had straightened, her chin was up, and the sparkle was back in her eyes. Nick smiled, quite pleased with himself, as they peeled off to their respective vehicles on the way to the diner.

Breakfast was a relaxed affair with lots of joking around and, at Greg's prompting, a round of stories of everyone's funniest rookie mistake. Grissom did in fact offer to treat everyone, although Nick was pretty sure he saw Catherine slip him some money with an unrepentant wink at Grissom's mock glare. Since he and Sara were the last ones to arrive, they ended up squeezed into edges of the booth facing each other.

Feeling particularly mischievous, and somewhat loopy from lack of sleep, Nick stretched his legs out under the booth to "accidentally" kick Sara, who gave him the evil eye the first two times, and then proceeded to bark his shin with her steel-toed work boots after his third attempt. Nick's yelp of pain and his shout of, "Dammit, woman, that's gonna leave a mark!" was good for several minutes of relentless badgering from Greg and Warrick and a satisfied smirk from Sara, who continued to primly eat her strawberry waffle as though nothing had happened. Grissom merely shook his head and reached for the butter dish, but Catherine lowered her fork, tilted her head to one side, and regarded Nick thoughtfully. "Footsies, Nicky? How old are you again?"

Warrick hooted and Greg snorted orange juice through his nose, which provided a welcome distraction from Nick's flaming face. Everyone but Grissom missed Sara's speculative, sharp-eyed appraisal of her blushing friend.

They lingered over their empty plates until Greg yawned, hurriedly covering his mouth with his fist. "Guess that's my cue to head home, guys." His expression sobered for a minute. "Nick, man, it's great to have you back. It feels like we're a real team again, you know?"

Nick extended his hand and Greg gave him a half high-five, half handshake. "Good to be back. Thank you guys for everything these past few weeks." Nick looked around the table, meeting their eyes one by one. "It made things a lot easier, knowing you all were there."

Warrick smirked at Nick and broke the mood. "All right, enough of this sappy shit. See you tonight." He paused to give Nick a fist-tap and ruffle Greg's spiky hair, prompting a chagrined, "Hey!" as the team filtered out to the parking lot.

"Hey, Fish Boy. You still up for that justifiable homicide you promised me, or are you going to wuss out?" Sara was leaning against his truck with her arms folded across her chest and an evil grin.

Nick shook his head at her. He was actually dying to go home and sleep, but there was no way he could back out of a challenge like that. "Fish Boy? You keep talking like that and I'll make you bait your own hook."

"What, you think I won't bait my own hook 'cause I'm a woman?" Now the gleam in her eyes looked outright dangerous.

Nick did his best to look innocent. "We shall see, Ms. Sidle. We shall see." She snorted and scowled at him. Nick smirked back at her. "Care to make it interesting?"

Sara shook her head. "I'm not sure who's a worse influence on whom, you or Warrick. Alright, Fish Boy, put your money where your mouth is."

"I don't like to bet money anymore – I learned my lesson on that one, watching 'Rick get into so much trouble." Nick took a deep breath and blurted out the first idea that came to mind, hoping he wasn't making an ass out of himself. "How about, if I win, you take me to dinner on Friday, and if you win, I take you to dinner on Friday."

"Dinner, huh?" Nick could see the wheels in her head churning away and stuffed his hand in his pockets to stop himself from cracking his knuckles compulsively. He waited. "Okay, but it has to be real dinner. No take-out, no paper napkins, and if I win, you can't eat meat."

Nick pulled his hands back out of his pockets, unable to resist one quick pop, so they could shake on the bet and get down to specifics. Nick needed to run home and get his poles and tackle box, and they both wanted to change clothes. "Meet me back at my place as soon as you're ready. We'll get you a fishing license at the bait shop."


	2. Chapter 2

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Two

XXXX

Tuesday Morning

An hour and a half later they pulled up to the bait shop at Lake Mead. Nick sent Sara to one counter to get her license while he plunked two containers in front of the cashier, paid for them, and secreted them away in a brown paper bag before she could see them. They rented a canoe, pushed off, and within fifteen minutes were floating in a small cove and passing sunscreen back and forth to cover their nightshift pallor. Sara looked around and let out a long, slow breath. "This is beautiful, Nicky."

"Yeah, it is. I don't do this often enough." Nick had opened his small tackle box and was tying snap swivels onto the ends of their lines. "Okay, Sidle, I distinctly remember somebody talking trash about baiting her own hook."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Bring it on, Stokes."

Nick snapped a hook on the end of her line and handed it to her carefully, showing her all the components of the spin caster and letting her explore the mechanism on her own for a minute. She picked up the mechanics of the rod and reel as quickly as he'd suspected she would, then looked up expectantly. "Okay, bring on the bait."

With a flourish, he extracted one of the containers he'd purchased at the bait shop and whipped off the top. "As you wish."

Sara looked once, then narrowed her eyes and leaned closer, then emitted a horrified gasp. "They're still alive!" Nick bit his tongue. She made a desperate, wild gesture with her hands, causing him to duck as the pole snapped toward his head. "You asshole! You're actually going to impale these poor creatures with a hook and hold them underwater while they're still alive!? Are you nuts? No way am I going to do that!"

Carefully keeping his face straight, Nick asked, "So, what you're telling me is that you won't bait your own hook?"

She glared at him, "Absolutely not. That's disgusting and vile and I will not..." Her voice trailed off and her free hand went to her hip. "Wait a minute..."

"So I was thinking about this fabulous steakhouse just off the Strip for Friday night. A little fillet mignon, maybe with some twice-baked potatoes..."

"Oh, no you don't, you sneaky, rotten, cheating little redneck." She reached out of the boat and scooped up a handful of water.

Nick's eyes widened. "Hey! Hey, now! Who you calling a redneck?" She slung the water at him, splashing his face and part of his chest. Nick coughed and started to laugh. Sara continued to fume, and reached down for another handful of water, faster this time. Her fishing pole, still clutched in her hand, swiped past his head. Nick was glad he'd taught her to secure the hook; a trip to the ER would make this whole event far less entertaining that he was currently finding it. Sara growled and flicked her hand up with expert aim, reiterating calmly, "No way, no how, no fair."

Nick ducked and she just got the top of his head this time. He lay his fishing pole down in the boat and reached over the side. "A bet's a bet, Sidle." The water caught her full in the face and drenched the front of her tee shirt. She gasped and spluttered. Nick froze. Her tee shirt. Her white tee shirt with the LVPD logo over one breast pocket. Her very, very wet white tee shirt. _And what looks like a very nice pink lacy bra_, a wicked voice in his head supplied. Nick jerked his eyes back to her face but not quickly enough.

Sara looked down, looked back up at Nick, narrowed her eyes into a glare that was really starting to scare him, dropped her rod and reel, and the fight was on. Both hands went over the side this time, and with a few quick moves she managed to drench him pretty much head to toe. He was blocking his face with one hand and reaching for more water with the other. The sound of splashing was interspersed with shrieks and shouts of laughter. The canoe rocked dangerously back and forth and it wasn't until Nick had to grab for his fishing reel as it started to go over the side that he yelled, "Uncle! Uncle!" One more splash hit him. "Shit, Sara! Truce!"

She stopped with her hand still in the lake and their eyes met. Nick saw her amused gaze travel down his soaking wet dark blue tee shirt, which was bleeding dye onto his faded jeans and, he suspected, onto his underwear. A large, muddy puddle swished in the bottom of the canoe, where the worms, capsized from their styrofoam cup during the water fight, wriggled excitedly in a fist-sized knot. Nick looked up from the worms and met Sara's bright brown eyes. The connection was too much, and they both let loose, howling with laughter. A few minutes later, Sara wiped her eyes, giggled once more, and socked him on the arm.

Nick held up his hands. "Ow! I said truce! How about a compromise?"

"Oh, so you admit you cheated?"

"Come on now, I didn't exactly cheat..."

"Nick..."

"Okay, how about this. Since I engaged in, shall we say, questionable ethics in the making of our bet, how about I take you to dinner on Friday, but I get to pick the restaurant and I get to eat meat if I want." Nick held out his hand to shake on it.

Sara chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. Nick found his attention wandering to her mouth, and he quickly relocated his gaze to her eyes. "It's a deal, but only if we also set the worms free."

"Set the worms free?"

"Yes. We can paddle over to the shore and let them out on the dirt, then we can just make do with that other stuff I saw in your tackle box. Deal?"

"Deal." Her hand felt smaller than he expected when he shook it. Nick shook his head briefly to clear it, and reached into the paper bag, now quite sodden, and removed the other container. "However, since most of the other tackle in this box is for saltwater fishing, and since I suspected I was going to win the bet..." Sara cleared her throat conspicuously and Nick flashed his teeth. "... by way of my, what did you call it? 'Rotten, cheating little redneck' ways?" She flicked her wet fingers at him. "I also bought some artificial worms."

"What?"

"Artificial worms. They're made of rubber, see?" She took the worm from his outstretched hand and examined it closely, then looked up at him with a look in her eyes he couldn't quite identify. "Sara, all kidding aside, I would never make you bait a live worm." He shrugged. "It's not that you're not tough enough, you know? It's that you think it's wrong."

Her eyes grew brighter and glassier, and Nick couldn't look away. They sat, soaked to the skin but quiet, for what felt to him like a long time before she blinked, sniffed, and swiped furtively at her eyes. "You're a good guy, Nick." She brushed his knuckles swiftly with her own, then retreated. "You're a good friend."

He made sure he was looking her in the eye when he replied, "So are you, Sara. I mean it. I've really liked spending time with you these past few weeks, and I want you to know you're always welcome at my place. You're good company." He squeezed her hand in his own and held it until she looked away shyly and returned her hand to her lap.

Sara nodded and cleared her throat. "So, what do you say we free those worms and do some real fishing?"

"Sounds good."

It was almost noon when he woke up. They had dumped the water out of the canoe when they had "freed the worms," and after threading their artificial worms onto their hooks and trailing them over the sides, Nick and Sara had gotten as comfortable as they could, reclining with their backsides on the bottom of the canoe and their heads and legs up on the seats, and had promptly succumbed to exhaustion.

Nick blinked at his watch. His ass was numb, but three fortunate things had occurred during his nap: they had drifted into a shady area and neither of them appeared sunburned; their clothes had dried, making it easier to look at Sara without being tempted to let his eyes wander; and they had shifted so Sara's head was against his shoulder and her body was tucked snugly next to his. Nick noted with amusement that neither of them had let go of their fishing poles, although Sara's was propped along the length of the canoe with her fingers slack around the cork handle.

He lay his head back next to hers and watched the sky. He loved being outdoors, he always had, and his experience being buried alive had only reinforced that predilection. For the first time since he moved to Vegas, Nick had truly appreciated the desert. It made it easier to be outside at night; the dry air cooled and the sky, once he got far enough from the city, was freckled with stars. He had two conflicting desires, these days: he hated to be alone, but he needed to be outside in the open.

As a single guy, it was tough to reconcile those two needs. The few women he'd dated recently had been casual flings, not the kind of woman he would have felt inclined to invite camping anyway. He'd considered asking Warrick to go with him, but 'Rick hated sleeping on the ground and he was still honeymooning, so a night away from his wife on the few nights he had off was really too much to ask. Nick had compromised by spending several nights asleep on the lounger in his back yard with his gun in his lap.

But Sara... Sara was different from anyone he'd ever known. They'd always enjoyed an easy camaraderie, but right from the beginning he'd known she was Grissom's girl. Nick had watched them watching each other and relegated himself to the role of "buddy" without a second thought. Nice guys don't move on their friends' girls, and smart guys don't make a play for the boss's lady. _But she's here_, a voice in his head whispered, asleep in the boat with him, her long limbs limp and heavy against his own, after agreeing to have dinner with him on Friday, after caring about him, after forgiving him.

Word gets around, and Grissom's confession to Lurie in the interrogation room was nowhere near the secret he thought it was. Grissom loved Sara, which surprised no one. Grissom was afraid to risk getting involved with her, which surprised everyone who thought they'd been sleeping together for years.

So where had that left Sara? Lonely, Nick suspected. Probably angry. Nick knew he'd have been hurt beyond measure if the person who'd flirted with him and strung him along for years had made a declaration like Grissom's. Sara was left untouchable. No one at the lab, with the exception of Greg, was ever going to consider her available. Whether he claimed her or not, Sara was Grissom's. Grissom was notoriously possessive of his people, Grissom was a supervisor, and no one at the lab, with the exception of Greg, was willing to challenge that. Greg got away with it because Grissom would never consider him a real threat, and Sara thought Greg was just kidding around.

Nick turned his nose into Sara's soft brown hair, which had dried in messy waves after their water fight, and closed his eyes. _She may be Grissom's girl, but she's here now and she's my friend. I'm outside, the sun is out, the water is rocking the canoe like a hammock, and I am not alone. _Tears burned hot under his lids and his breath shuddered in his throat._ I'm outside, and I am not alone. _Nick lay his fishing pole down in the boat and drifted back to sleep.

The next time Nick opened his eyes, it was because the boat was bouncing back and forth and Sara was perched on the seat near his head, cursing under her breath. She paused in shaking out her legs and shrugged. "Sorry. My legs fell asleep and now they're all pins and needles. Didn't mean to wake you, you looked so peaceful, but it was driving me nuts." She wiggled her legs again and resumed the inventive stream of profanity that had pulled him from sleep.

Feeling relaxed and content despite the cricks he knew were lurking in his neck and back, and still mostly asleep, Nick mumbled, "Okay darlin'," let his eyes drift shut, and groped blindly until he found her waist with his arm and settled his cheek against her hip.

_The dream was the same as it had been every night since his rescue. He was back in the box, but this time, no one came and there was no gun. He heard the fan stop and felt the air grow heavier and heavier until he was gasping vainly for oxygen. The glow sticks were all used up, the darkness was thicker than the air, and his lungs were on fire. He was dragging in deep, desperate breaths and trying not to cry or scream because there was no air, no air..._

"Nick?" Fingers were combing gently through his hair, soothing. The air was warm and fresh, and when his breathing quieted he could hear the rustle of wind in the trees. His cheek was against something soft that smelled pleasantly of fabric softener, perfume with sandalwood and flowers, and female sweat. He kept his eyes shut, tensed his arms and gripped her tighter.

"Nick? It's okay, you're safe. It's just a dream. We found you, remember? You never have to go back there again. It's over, baby, you made it home, you're safe now..." The tears which had threatened earlier escaped with "it's okay," and by the time she got to "never again" the sobs were tearing out of his chest in such painful heaves that he barely registered the way her voice broke on "home."

Torn between relief and utter humiliation, Nick hid his face against Sara's thigh and cried, powerless to stop the deluge that poured forth for the first time since they'd dug him up three weeks ago. He babbled, not sure she could even understand his garbled voice as he told her everything: the fear, the rage, the powerlessness, the claustrophobia, finally having to wet his pants like a two-year-old because there was no where else to go, the desperate exhaustion, the moment when he gave up, just before they found him, and, later, the burning shame of realizing the whole lab had watched his ordeal on the live feed.

His cramping legs had curled up toward his torso and he was on his knees in the bottom of the canoe with his head in her lap and his arms circling her middle. The more he tried to stifle the sobs, the harder he wept. Sara's voice was soft and steady and calm in a way he'd never heard it before. "It's okay, Nick, you're safe. You're gonna be all right. It's okay, it's okay to cry, it doesn't mean you're not strong, baby, it's okay..." Her hands never stopped stroking his hair or smoothing the wet salt from his cheeks, and her voice never stopped its gentle crooning.

When he finally wound down, he was exhausted, the leg of her jeans was soaked and Nick was afraid to look up, partially from embarrassment and partially because he was dying to blow his nose and was pretty sure there were no Kleenex in the boat. If he were alone he could just do an Eskimo air hanky into the lake or use his shirt, but Nick decided he'd looked stupid in front of Sara enough for one day and tried to discreetly transfer the snot from his nose to his hand to the leg of his jeans without attracting her notice. Her one hand was still on his head, but he could feel her moving above him. Curiosity won out, and he risked a glance upward, catching her furtive glance down as she wiped her nose with her hand.

Red eyes met red eyes, and realization hit them simultaneously. The first laughs sound more like coughs, but by the time they really got going, Nick had pulled himself up to sit next to her on the narrow seat, grabbed the inside corner of his tee shirt and was using it to dry her face before squeegeeing his nose. His embarrassment had been eased enough by their laughter that he was able to smile sheepishly at her. Unable to think of anything else to say, he asked, "What time is it?"

Sara glanced at her watch and scowled. "Crap. It's already four-thirty. We should really get going soon. It's bad enough we slept in the boat, but if we cruise in rumpled and stinking like lake, there will be no shutting Greg up."

Nick grinned at that. "Actually, I could probably get a lot of mileage out of this, torture that boy for days... oof. Damn, woman, you got pointy elbows."

They paddled in companionable silence back to the dock, returned the canoe, and retrieved their deposit. They were in Nick's truck and rolling out toward the interstate when Sara's stomach growled. "Is that a hint?"

"Well, since we didn't bring home that fresh trout dinner you were promising me," Sara smirked at him, "yes, I think we can consider that a strong suggestion."

"I don't know that we're really presentable enough for a restaurant, so we could either grab take-out, eat some leftover Magnificent Lasagne, or I could throw something together for us.'

"You can cook?"

"Yep."

"Stokes, you've been holding out on me! I vote we head back to your place and you show me what you've got."

Nick could hear the challenging grin he knew was on her face. "You know, Sidle, if I didn't know you better, I could read way too much into that statement." Nick carefully kept his eyes on the road. "Especially since you already showed me what you've got back there with that wet tee shirt..." He braced himself.

The aggravated snort and her muttered, "Pervert," were milder than he'd expected. Nick grinned broadly as they lapsed back into silence, nothing but the sound of the road and the faint squawk of the radio maintaining a pleasant white noise. After about ten minutes, Nick risked a glance to see if Sara was still awake. She was staring ahead of the car and looked deep in thought. "Hey Sara, can I ask you something?"

"You can ask."

"Smartass." Nick made a face at her before his mouth settled into a frown and his knuckles blanched on the steering wheel. "Uh, these past few weeks, since, well, everything... everyone tried to get me to talk about it but you. How come?"

Sara turned in her seat so she was facing him. "I was curious, but that was for me, you know? I thought about it, and I decided that if you needed to talk about it, you would." She scrunched up her forehead. "I don't think it's right to push someone about being ready to talk about a traumatic experience. Everyone processes the events of their life at their own pace. I just decided I'd make sure you knew I was around, so that if you wanted to talk to me, you could."

Nick whistled softly in admiration. "Man, Sara, you nailed it. No one else seemed to get that but you. How... If you don't mind my asking, how did you know?"

Sara paused. "It's a, uh, it's a long story." She was silent for so long Nick started to worry he'd pushed too far, but when he opened his mouth to apologize, she shook her head at him. "I don't like people to know about this, and I don't like to talk about it, but..." she trailed off, glanced at the road and the dashboard clock, and braced herself. "I grew up thinking it was normal for my father to beat my mother, that that was what families did..."

She repeated the story she had told Grissom several years earlier, but with more detail. Money problems, yelling, broken bones, trips to the hospital, the smell of her father's blood, the police, foster homes, counselors. Nick was pulling into his driveway when she came to the end. "My mother's been out of jail for over fifteen years now, but I don't see her that often. We talk on the phone -- she calls at least twice a month -- but it just takes so much energy out of me that I tend to avoid her, which makes me feel guilty, but not guilty enough to pick up the phone and call."

Sara's voice trailed off, and she stared straight out the windshield, although Nick was sure she had no idea where she was. He braked, put the truck in park, reached across the center console and put his hand on her forearm as gently as he could. Sara turned to him and gasped, "Oh, God, Nick, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – mwph."

His arms were around her and he half-dragged her across the console. She rearranged her head so she faced his shoulder, not his neck, and Nick felt her hesitate, then slowly put her arms around him in return.

After a moment, he could feel her relax. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, Nick released her and said, "Okay, my friend, we are home, and I believe I promised I'd show you mine." He winked and she rolled her eyes. Nick continued without pausing, "You keep doing that and they're gonna pop clean out of your head. Come on in, let me feed you before we have to get ready for work. I've got to have a meatless recipe somewhere in the family cookbook."

She grabbed the tackle box, he grabbed the fishing poles, and he held the door for her. Nick kept dinner conversation light, regaling her with stories of growing up as the youngest of seven kids ("My sister Nancy calls me 'The Accident'"), five of them girls ("By the time they gave us the human development talk at school, I could have taught the class on menstruation, cramps, PMS, pregnancy, labor, the whole nine yards. I became an uncle when I was eight years old.")

Neither of them quite knew how to do good-bye when they were done eating, and they fumbled their way into a brief, awkward hug before Sara migrated out the door to her car. Nick watched her pull away before heading for the bathroom, shedding clothes as he went and discovering that, as he had suspected, his white boxer briefs now looked like they'd been tie-dyed a lovely sky blue, and, to his surprise, so did his chest.. He shrugged and kicked his pants toward the hamper. As he got ready for work later that evening, Nick found himself singing in the shower for the first time since he'd come home from the hospital.


	3. Chapter 3

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Three

XXXXX

Tuesday Night

He'd caught a two-hour nap after dinner, but Nick was still dragging at the start of shift. He stumbled into the break room a few minutes early and gave Greg the best puppy dog eyes he could muster until the younger man groaned, heaved himself out of his chair, and rooted out his stash of expensive coffee, muttering vague and dire threats should Nick expose his secret hiding place. Deciding that Greg wasn't as stupid as he liked to pretend sometimes, Nick bit back his retort that everyone already knew about the secret hiding place and had been taking turns refilling the bag for over a year now, and just said, "Thanks, man."

Greg gave him a surprisingly sympathetic look. "It's rough getting back to the nightshift schedule, isn't it." Remembering Greg's injuries after the lab explosion, Nick simply nodded, and they sat sipping their coffee while Greg exaggerated his latest romantic exploits until Grissom wandered in with the assignment slips. He looked up and frowned. "Where is everyone?"

Nick shrugged. "I think we were a little early, and it looks like everyone else is a little late. Should we start making phone calls?"

Grissom nodded. "You call Warrick, I'll call Sara, Greg can call Catherine."

Eyes wide, Greg looked up from opening his cell phone. "Hey, Griss, how about _I_ call Sara and _you_ call Cath..." At Grissom's raised eyebrow, he slumped back in his seat. "Never mind."

Nick chuckled, listening to 'Rick's phone ringing in his earpiece _and_ echoing down the hall. He hung up as his friend rushed into the room, slightly out of breath. "Sorry Griss. Hey Nick. Hey Greggo."

"I'm not checking up on you, Cath... Yes, I know you were a shift supervisor... Grissom asked me to... Okay, okay, fifteen minutes, I'll tell him." Greg snapped his phone shut and put his hands over his ears, giving Grissom the evil eye behind his back.

Nick found himself straining to hear Grissom's conversation with Sara, but the low rumble of the older man's voice was difficult to make out without sounding deliberately hushed. At the tender concern in Grissom's "Are you okay, honey?", Nick clenched his jaw and looked away, avoiding Warrick's suddenly amused expression.

"Oh." Grissom's voice became clearer, more businesslike. "Well, it happens to the best of us, I suppose, but get in quickly, we've got a busy night. You can work with Catherine, she's late, too. I'll leave the assignment slip in her inbox since it sounds like she'll beat you here. Possible suicide out in Henderson. And Sara, get a new alarm clock." Grissom disconnected the call and snapped his phone closed. Nick felt an unexpected surge of relief, and raised his coffee cup to his mouth to hide his grin.

Grissom spun back around to face the male members of the team, all of whom were sitting at the table and regarding him with varying degrees of humor. Clearly deciding that Greg looked the most conspicuously smug, Grissom handed the younger man an assignment slip, at which Greg glanced and started muttering under his breath.

"Greg, you've got your very own trick roll at a motel off the interstate, then you come find me. I'll be at the suspicious circs at Circus Circus," Grissom paused to smirk at his own play on words and stare Greg into silence. "Warrick and Nick, you guys have the second car fire in two days. Investigate it as an independent case but also see if there's a connection between today's fire and yesterday's. Fire department's cleared the scene and they're waiting for you, so get moving."

Nodding at each other as they stood to leave, the two Level Three's automatically started their game of Rock Paper Scissors to see who would drive, since they both looked equally tired. Grabbing their kits, they piled into Warrick's SUV with limited enthusiasm. Nick spoke first. "So I've got an excuse 'cause I'm just getting back on nights. What the hell happened to you?"

"Do you have any Advil?"

Nick handed him a bottle of water and dug out two tablets from his kit. "That bad, huh? What's up, man?"

"Huge fight with Tina. Don't want to talk about it. Thanks for the water."

Nick nodded, remembering what Sara had said to him that afternoon about people needing to talk when they were ready. "Sure. You can give me a shout if you need to, you know that, right?"

Warrick gave him a tired half-smile. "Yeah. Thanks, Nicky. I'm all right, I just didn't get enough sleep."

They spent several hours processing the scene, and decided to drop off the evidence before taking a dinner break. No one else was around, so they took themselves to their favorite sports bar and split some wings while they waited for their sandwiches.

Nick was pretty sure Warrick deliberately waited for him to take a big bite of roast beef on whole wheat to ask, "So what's going on with you and Sara?" He pounded Nick's back with more enthusiasm than strictly necessary after part of the roast beef hit the table and part got sucked into Nick's windpipe.

Eyes watery, still coughing a bit, Nick decided to take a page out of Greg's book and feign confusion. "What are you talking about?"

The snort and the steady hazel gaze told Nick that the act wasn't working any better for him than it did for Greg. "Nothing's going on. She's a good friend. She's really helped me a lot these past few weeks, and she's, she's fun to hang out with." Nick took a swig of his root beer and focused on his sandwich. Warrick remained silent, and Nick found himself opening his mouth again. "She's a good listener, doesn't make a big deal out of stuff. Sara's... cool." He finished lamely, this time forcing himself to take another bite of roast beef and hoping it was too dark for Warrick to notice how red his ears were.

Nick chewed without looking up. After he swallowed, he glanced at Warrick, who still hadn't said a word. At the expression on his friend's face, Nick narrowed his eyes. "Oh, no, you don't. I know that look. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear your genius calculation of the odds that she'd ever be interested in me. I don't want to hear the odds Grissom will fire my ass once he hears I managed to get her to go out with me on Friday night. I don't want to hear the odds that this is going to be a gigantic mess. Leave it alone, 'Rick. Tell that damned computer in your brain to give it a rest."

Warrick ignored him. "At least a thousand to one." Without elaborating, he took a neat bite of his turkey club and wiped his hands on his napkin.

Nick tried, he really did, but his curiosity got the better of him. With a dramatic sigh, he replaced his sandwich on his plate and gave Warrick a hard stare. "Okay, dammit, I'll bite. A thousand to one what?"

He had to wait for his answer. Warrick chewed thoroughly, took a swallow of water, and replied, "The odds she'd ever give Grissom another chance once she figures out how happy she'll be with you. Old habits are hard to break, but she's smart and she knows Griss much better than he gives her credit for." Warrick quirked his lips into a smug grin.

"As for the rest of what you said, I wouldn't lay odds on any of it." Warrick used the fingers of his free hand to tick off his points. "One, I think she's already interested in you. Two, Grissom would never fire you for doing what he knows he doesn't have the stones to do himself -- although you can expect shit detail for a while until he wraps his head around the fact that he's finally lost her – and, three, congratulations on getting her to go out with you. I know you've had an eye on her for a while, now."

Nick felt his mouth hanging open and pulled it shut with a snap. "An eye on... Geez, 'Rick. Please, _please,_ tell me people don't lump me in with Greg – another jackass following her around like a puppy. Aw, shit..."

Warrick was shaking his head. "No, man, you're cool about it. I don't think anyone except Catherine thinks anything is up, and you know Cath – she sees drama everywhere." He smiled the way Nick had always seen him smile when he talked about Catherine, which Nick filed away for later, and then Warrick rubbed his hand over his face as it settled into graver lines.

"What happened to you affected all of us. I started doing a lot of thinking after we pulled you out. Life is short, random, and unpredictable. There's stuff you know for sure, and stuff you just have to take on faith, or take a chance on. Marrying Tina was a leap of faith. Maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't – and the odds on that change by the hour – but I had to try. What happened to you tore me up inside. Because you're my friend, and because it could have been me in there. Shit, Nick, we _flipped a coin _to see who took that call.

"I watched how everyone reacted when they saw you on that video feed. I watched Griss and Sara and Cath and Greg and Archie and Hodges. You know, it took all of us to find you. Grissom's bugs, Sara's bull-headedness, Catherine wrangled a million dollars out of Sam Braun for your ransom, Greg shut up and did anything we asked, Archie didn't sleep for days, and Hodges almost beat the crap out of some guy delivering a package. _Hodges_, Nick!

"I watched your parents, and I realized that if it had been me, you guys would have been the only ones keeping vigil. You joke about your huge, crazy family, but your parents were here in _hours_, Nick, and your brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles were all waiting by the phone. Since Gram died, I don't have any family. I want that. Tina's got three younger sisters, and her parents have been married for thirty years, and they actually get together every week for Sunday dinner, can you believe that?"

Nick watched as Warrick carefully got his breathing under control, keeping his eyes on the table in front of him as he folded his crumpled napkin into small squares. He continued, "I wanted to be a part of that. I think you know how I feel about Catherine, but our circumstances..." A humorless laugh chuffed past his wry grimace. "I suppose I played the odds after all. I guess I can't help myself."

Now he looked up and met Nick's eyes squarely. "Grissom's a great guy, and he literally walked through fire to get you back, but even though he's had happiness sitting right across the table from him for five years, he's been willing to go home alone to that cold-ass mausoleum of a townhouse every night, and he's never going to change.

"When you were in that box, I looked around at you and your family, and I looked at Grissom, and I made my choice. I respect the man, but I don't ever want to end up like him. And I bet these past few weeks, Sara's been thinking about her life, and looking at you and looking at Grissom, and I think she's making a choice, too. And I think Grissom's going to lose."

Warrick closed his mouth around the last of his turkey club and watched Nick digest what he'd just heard. Nick couldn't think of anything to say that would do justice to what Warrick had just told him, so he simply nodded and kept his mouth shut. They finished their meals and paid the check in a thoughtful silence which followed them back to the lab and for much of the rest of the shift.


	4. Chapter 4

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Four

XXXX

Wednesday Morning

The two "car-becues," as Greg called them, kept Nick and Warrick busy until it was time to go home, and Sara and Catherine were still out in Henderson when he left. Nick debated calling Sara as he was pulling out of the parking lot, but ruled that out as too heavy-handed, deciding to follow his usual routine and hit the gym. He had a lot to think about, anyway.

Although working nightshift was admittedly a pain in the ass most of the time, and would have been unbearable in any other city, one enormous advantage was that by the time he arrived at his gym, the morning rush was over and the lunch rush was still a few hours away. Nick changed and stretched out before hopping onto a treadmill to warm up. He kept his earphones in mostly to discourage conversation, let his body find a steady rhythm, and thought back over the last two days.

Nick had surprised himself by approaching Sara – first to go fishing, and then to go to dinner. After his initial assessment of Sara as a buddy, his awareness of her as a woman was something he had kept far below the surface for years. Sure, she was pretty, even beautiful in an earthy, understated way, but very much not his usual type – although, Nick admitted to himself grudgingly, his usual type didn't seem to bring him anything but trouble.

As much as he enjoyed women, he'd never been able to link sex and trust in his mind, and Nick knew he tended to go into relationships with few expectations other than a good time. He was an anomaly in his family; his folks were high school sweethearts whose fiftieth anniversary was coming up, and he was the only single one left among his brother and sisters. Most of them had kids – shoot, even his brother Chuck, who Nick privately thought of as kind of a dipshit, was married. His father was perplexed that "a good-natured, good-lookin' boy like you" in his middle thirties hadn't found himself a nice girl and settled down, but then again, his father didn't know about him being molested as a kid. Nick had been too ashamed to tell him when he was little, and now he didn't have the heart to hurt him.

And now this thing with Sara... Nick could barely assimilate what had transpired between them in that canoe. Granted, he'd always been a bit quick to mist over – something the guys in his frat had teased him about, and for which Nick cheerfully blamed his many sisters – but that kind of breakdown was unbelievable. Plus, she'd been so great about the whole thing that when he was able to look beyond the utter humiliation of having cried like a baby in front of a woman, he had to admit it had felt... good.

Physically good – the rocking of the canoe, her gentle touch, her scent, her voice in that soothing singsong that had connected with some primal center in his brain – and emotionally good. He felt better than he had in weeks, albeit still worn out, and he was floored that she'd told him about her childhood. Hell, he was floored she'd _survived_ her childhood.

Warrick's assumption that he had big plans for Sara and Sara for him had surprised Nick. Yesterday had been totally improvised; he'd wanted to show her... what, exactly? He'd originally wanted to make up for hurting her feelings, to thank her for being a good friend, but now he found he'd stumbled into an intimacy that he hadn't expected. Although 'Rick had been incredibly insightful about most of what he'd talked about, he'd gotten one part wrong: Nick had no plan, no specific goal, and no idea what he was doing with Sara.

Finishing his warm-up jog, Nick stretched again before making his way to the free weights and deliberately emptying his mind of everything except physical exertion.

It wasn't until he was home and standing under a warm shower that Nick decided to go ahead and call Sara. She checked up on him all the time; he'd give her a quick buzz to tease her about getting some sleep. Touch base but keep it light.

He used the phone in the living room, because the idea of talking to Sara while laying in bed made him uneasy. Sure, he'd done it before, but now, with this new awareness of her, he was slightly nervous. Nick settled sideways on the couch in loose shorts and an old tee shirt and listened to her cell ringing. There was a rustle, then a sleepy voice mumbled, "Sidle."

Oops. "Uh, sorry, Sara, I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Nick? Is everything okay?" He could hear more rustling in the background.

"Oh, yeah, everything's great." He was being ridiculous. No matter what was going on in his head, it was just Sara. Nick started to laugh, at himself mostly. "Ironically, I was calling to make sure you got some sleep before shift tonight."

Her laughter joined his and she sounded more awake. "Actually, I'm glad you called. I punked out on the couch in my work clothes watching some dumb-ass reality show about home remodeling. You just saved me from waking up late for shift covered in couch marks with my pager embedded in my hipbone – which, I might add, is exactly what happened last night. If I show up late twice in one week, Grissom's going to schedule me for counseling."

Nick couldn't resist, even though he knew he was asking for trouble. "Yeah, he seemed pretty concerned... _honey_."

"Shut up, _Nicky_." She sounded more amused than pissed off, so he kept going.

"So, what's your pet name for him? Sugar-pie? Mushy-face? Love bug? Oh, that's a visual that would give Greg a stroke – you petting Grissom's tarantula and calling him your 'Love Bug.'"

"So Greg doesn't want me petting Grissom's tarantula, eh? Is that what kids are calling it these days?"

Nick sat bolt upright and hooted. "Damn, girl! You know I'll never be able to sit in Griss's office with a straight face again, right?"

"Well, then, my work here is done. That's what you get for waking me up."

"Yeah, I am sorry about that," Nick said sincerely, then paused before deciding to just speak his mind. "I guess I just wanted to check we were okay. Yesterday was pretty intense. I'm not quite sure what to make of it."

"Me either, but about halfway through shift I realized I was driving myself crazy overanalzying the whole thing and figured we've known each other long enough that I'd just roll with it." Her voice seemed softer when she continued hesitantly, "I enjoyed spending the day with you. You're, uh, you're good company, too, you know."

"Thanks." He decided to stick with his plan to keep things light. "That's what all the ladies tell me."

"Pig."

"That's what all the ladies..."

She cut him off. "All right, Studmuffin, enough. I'm going to bed. I'll see you tonight."

"Bye, Schmoopy."

He heard her growl, "Bite me, Stokes," as she hung up on him. Nick fell asleep still chuckling, waking only once from a nightmare before drifting back off until his alarm clock beeped.


	5. Chapter 5

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Five

XXXX

Late Thursday Morning

Nick was ready to fall over. Shift was supposed to have ended four hours ago, but at about three a.m. he and Warrick had started processing the car from the second highway fire and hadn't wanted to break their rhythm. They'd found remnants of what could be an incendiary device on the side of the gas tank, and were currently involved in swabbing, sorting, and labeling small, burnt bits of metal.

Nick hadn't noticed the time until a few minutes ago when he'd finished his half of the pile, and now he felt like someone had unplugged his power supply. He was vaguely annoyed with how easily he tired these days, but chalked it up to readjusting his sleep schedule. Nick's eyelids were succumbing to gravity despite his best efforts to keep them open, and he was slumped over the light table with his cheek balanced unsteadily in his palm. Warrick, deeply focused on teasing apart a mangled wad of shrapnel and wires, hadn't noticed yet.

From what seemed like far away, Nick's hearing picked up the squeaky clomping of Sara's work boots heading in his direction. He pushed himself to his feet and forced his features into what he hoped was a more alert configuration, which basically boiled down to closing his mouth and blinking to moisten his dry contact lenses.

Sara walked partially past the door to the layout room, glanced in, caught sight of Nick, did an abrupt ninety-degree turn, leaned against the doorframe, and folded her arms across her chest. "Warrick." No response. Louder this time, "CSI Brown."

Warrick didn't look up, but hummed an abstracted acknowledgment.

Louder still, and this time with one of her trademark smirks. "Yo, Vegas."

She was rewarded with an annoyed squint. "Whaddaya want, Frisco?"

"How long have you guys been at this?"

"Since three, why?"

"I'm taking Nick home."

"What?" Warrick's head whipped sideways at his partner and his eyes widened. "Oh, damn. Yeah, go ahead." He stepped closer to Nick and held out his hand. "Nicky, give me your car keys."

Nick, who'd been mutely following their exchange, felt himself swaying a little as he dug into his jeans pocket and plunked his keys onto his friend's outstretched palm. He moved closer to the light table and propped one hip back onto his recently vacated stool.

Warrick shook his head and turned back to Sara, handing her Nick's keys. "Take him home. And, damn, don't let him drive. Sorry, I lost track of time."

"No problem. C'mon Nick, let's head out. We'll take your car and you can call me for it when you wake up."

"Sure, darlin'." His feet weren't moving and his eyelids were drooping again.

"Oh, man. 'Rick, I should kick your ass. I am _so_ calling you if I need to carry him into his house."

"Have fun," Warrick snickered, then added, "Actually, you really could have fun with him on the ride home. He talks in his sleep and you can get him to say some pretty goofy stuff." At her raised eyebrow, he explained, "Shared a room on that out-of-town case a while back."

Nick mumbled, "Shut up, 'Rick," as he felt Sara move close to him and loop one long arm around his waist, pulling him away from the light table. Nick put his arm around her shoulders and leaned into her, turning his nose into her hair. "Hmmm." he sighed contentedly. "You sure smell good, Sar. Much better than after a decomp." He vaguely heard Warrick's laughter behind him as Sara maneuvered them down the hall.

Her teasing voice was pitched low and close to his ear. "We'll come back for your stuff later, Studmuffin. Let's just get you to bed for now."

Nick heard a sharp intake of breath and pried his eyes open to see Grissom standing in his office door with his glasses in one hand and his mouth hanging open. Nick struggled upright but kept his arm around Sara, and swung his gaze back and forth between Sara and their supervisor as they stared at each other, Sara with her chin defiantly high and Grissom's blue eyes metamorphosing from shocked fury to raw pain.

Nick left them to their silent argument as his attention flagged and he sighed and leaned closer to Sara, letting the walls of the lab lose focus. Sara began to move them forward again, and Nick thought he heard Grissom whisper something ending in, "... too late," as they passed. Nick felt Sara's shoulders go rock hard under his arm.

They made it out to his truck and Sara more or less poured him into the passenger seat. "Wait here, I forgot my bag." Nick slumped against the car door and let his eyes close completely.

A few minutes later, the driver's side door opened and slammed shut again, waking him slightly. Nick looked at Sara, whose eyes were suspiciously red-rimmed but who started the vehicle wordlessly and backed out of the parking space.

Warrick was right, and despite his protests, Nick knew he tended to babble when he was sleepy. Whatever inhibitions he usually had were nowhere to be found and now he heard himself blurt out, "Are you still in love with Grissom?"

Sara's knuckles went white on the steering wheel and she let out a sound that landed somewhere between a laugh, an indignant huff, and a sob. Nick rearranged his body so he was facing Sara and snuggled his head against the headrest. Sara hadn't answered him, but he noticed she was biting her lip so hard he could see the muscles in her jaw clench. Nick watched as his right hand stretched across to clumsily squeeze her shoulder, feeling her trembling, "He's an idiot for letting you go."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Her voice was tight and humorless. "Go back to sleep, Nick."

Nick let his eyes drift shut. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth and he slurred, "Smart but stupid. I'd never..."

The door slamming woke Nick up, and he roused enough to drag himself out of the car and up the front walk to where Sara was unlocking the door and clicking off the house alarm with his key fob. She jumped when he reached around her to turn the knob, and stepped out of his way as he slouched into the living room, aiming for the couch. "Oh, no you don't. You're going to bed."

"Okay."

She grabbed his hand and tugged, and Nick let her lead him into his bedroom, where he flopped face first onto the disordered blankets. "Huh," he heard her bemused voice, "I figured you'd be the type to make your bed every day."

"Usually do." The pillow was muffling his words. "Didn't have time today."

"Do you want to take out your contacts?" He grunted unintelligibly. "All right, then, Stokes, my mission is accomplished. Call me when you wake up and we'll sort out our cars then." She reached down to rumple his hair and Nick clutched her wrist, rolling onto his side.

"Don't go, darlin'." He tried to sound smooth and mask his sudden desperation to keep her with him.

He must have been a little too successful, because she sounded annoyed. "That may work with those bimbos you run around with, but don't pull that shit with me."

"Sara, stay." He tugged her hand, abandoning cool completely. "Please. I'm sick of the nightmares." Nick knew he was whining but couldn't stop himself.

She plunked down on the edge of the bed. "Oh, Nick. What am I gonna do with you?"

He maneuvered her hand back on top of his head and inched closer to her. "Please."

Her fingers combed absently through his hair and Nick felt himself drifting away. "Hmmmm, thanks, Sara..."

XXXXX

An hour later

Nick's eyelids were full of sand, and his jeans had ridden up into his crotch and were cutting off the blood supply to his testicles. He stumbled out of bed to the bathroom, pried his lenses out of his eyes, skipped putting on his glasses, swiped halfheartedly at his teeth with his toothbrush, and returned to his bedroom, shedding his pants and scratching himself with the unselfconscious abandon of a confirmed bachelor. He tripped getting the jeans over his ankles, toed off his socks, and crawled back onto his bed, which was lumpier than he remembered and was making a muffled noise that sounded a lot like female laughter.

Nick didn't bother opening his eyes. "Shove it, Sidle."

The laughter unmuffled and she wheezed a bit. "Well, since you seem to be all settled in now, I'd best be heading home."

Nick impressed himself with his aim and his reach as he silenced Sara by dragging her from her seat next to his pillow until she was spooned against him. Arranging them until he was thoroughly comfortable, Nick growled. "Nope. You are in possession of classified information. Can't let you leave; homeland security."

She had overcome her surprise and resumed chuckling; he could feel her back shaking against his chest, a sensation he found he enjoyed. Her voice was amused. "What classified information?"

"The answer to the age-old question: boxers or briefs." He was impressed with himself for coming up with that on short notice.

"Nick, for crying out loud, we have a communal locker room at work. You and Warrick both wear boxer briefs. Yours are usually plain black or gray, he has some more colors and patterns. Greg wears regular boxers, mostly with cartoon characters on them. Catherine actually wears thongs, which horrifies me given the amount of squatting and bending we do at crime scenes, and Sofia sometimes skips bras and just wears camisoles."

Nick's left eye, the one not buried in the pillow, popped open and focused on Sara's hair, now enticingly close to him. "Sofia goes braless?"

Sara reached behind her and smacked the top of his head. Hard. She flipped over and wriggled to the other pillow, leaving a good foot of space between them and giving him a clear view of her glare. Nick grinned. She was so much fun to piss off. "What about Grissom? Boxers or briefs?"

Her face flushed and she looked away. Trying to draw her out, Nick waved his index finger in an unsteady "Eureka!" pose as he answered his own question. "I know! I know! Neither -- Grissom goes commando."

Sara whipped back toward Nick in shock, but she managed to keep a straight face long enough to deadpan, "So, Nick, what you're saying is that the _odd_ball _free_balls?"

Nick about swallowed his tongue at her rapid response. His choking noises drove them both over the edge and they howled with laughter before dissolving into limp, hiccuping heaps. The long night caught up with them both; Sara stayed curled on her side facing him and Nick heard her breathing even out. When he was pretty sure she was asleep, he reached over and took her hand, pulling it to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to the knuckles. He feel asleep with her fingers threaded through his own.


	6. Chapter 6

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Six

XXXXX

Thursday, late evening

Nick awoke to his alarm clock and a note on her pillow telling him she'd run home to shower and change and would be back with his car in time for start of shift. The tone of the note was neutral, so Nick wasn't sure if he'd driven her away with unconscious groping or a pesky morning hard-on; he'd slept so soundly he had no idea how long she'd been gone.

He showered and shaved quickly and prepared English muffins and travel mugs of coffee for two, proud that he timed it so that the toaster pinged just as she knocked on the door. He opened the front door and handed her the coffee in one movement, prompting her cheerful sigh of, "Ooooh, you're my hero, Nick."

As an icebreaker, it worked exceptionally well. He relaxed. "I love it when you moan, darlin'," Nick waggled his eyebrows suggestively, smiling as she shook her head. "Do you want eggs?"

"No thanks." Sara trailed after him to the kitchen and hopped up on a stool at the breakfast bar watching him butter the muffins while she sipped her coffee. "Hmm. This is excellent. Is this the coffee you use to contribute to Greg's not-so-secret stash of good stuff?"

"The very same." He handed her a small plate with her muffins, pointed to the jam jar, and sat next to her. "He's spoiled us all."

"Yep."

They munched quietly for a few minutes before Nick ventured, "What time did you leave?"

"Eight-ish. I set your alarm for nine, was that enough time?"

"Yeah, thanks." Her noncommittal answer hadn't given him anything to work with, so Nick pressed further. "Did you sleep okay?"

She turned to face him and gave him one of her full, bright smiles that showed her diastema. "Actually, I did." A hint of devilment lit her dark eyes, "You're a snuggler, you know that?"

Uh, oh. Was that good or bad? His face started to heat up, but he tried to sound casual. "Really?"

"And a very sound sleeper."

Oh, boy. Nick knew he was blushing. "What makes you say that?" He was pretty sure he was in some major trouble.

She drew out her pause until Nick felt his fingers bend to crack a knuckle. "Well, you fell asleep holding my hand..." God, she was killing him here... "...and when I woke up you were holding something else..."

His eyes widened. She licked her lips and continued. "Something soft, something I think you like very much..." Nick's eyes flicked down to her breasts. Crap.

Just before he opened his mouth to start his apology, he looked back to her face and blinked in puzzlement. He'd never seen anyone's eyes actually dance with mischief before, but he was pretty sure that was what he was looking at right now.

"...a teddy bear."

Nick froze. Shit. Double shit. Shit on a stick. Shit with sugar. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_. Why couldn't he have just been a normal guy and felt her up in his sleep? Poked her in the back with a little morning wood, tweaked a nipple, tongue in the ear, anything, _anything_ but this.

How could this have happened? He hadn't even noticed when he woke up this evening. How the hell had she seen that? He put Bear away in the back of his closet every day when he made his bed. _Every_ day when he made his... oh. _Shit_.

Sara had turned her back to him and was rooting through her handbag, seemingly oblivious to Nick's mortification. This was the absolute fucking prizewinning moment of this entire fucking bizarre week of weirdness with Sara. Nick closed his eyes and felt nauseated. He might as well castrate himself now, because as soon as word got out, he was never getting laid again. Other men would point and laugh as he passed through the halls of the lab, Greg would fill his locker with teddy bears, Warrick would be embarrassed to seen with...

Soft lips brushed his. His eyes snapped open to find her inches from his face. Her expression reminded him of that moment in the canoe when he'd told her about the artificial worms – like he'd done something wonderful and surprising without meaning to. One of her long-fingered hands reached up to bracket his cheek, which she stroked with her thumb before dropping her hand and stepping back a pace.

Her other hand came out from behind her back. Nick looked down quizzically at a greyish, threadbare piece of fabric with a tattered yellow satin edge. She was absently rubbing a pull in the satin between her fingertips. When Nick returned his gaze to her warm brown eyes, he noticed her blush.

Sara drew in a long breath. "This is Boop. I don't know where I came up with the name, but I've had Boop since I was a baby. He was a gift from my Nanna. She died when I was eleven, two months before my mother killed my dad. I sleep with Boop whenever I've had a bad day, and I fold him up and hide him in my file cabinet behind my old tax returns so no one ever sees him." The flare of total vulnerability in her eyes squeezed his heart when she whispered, "Not even Grissom."

Nick reached down and touched the soft old blanket, continuing his caress to enclose her hand in his as he stepped closer to her. Acting purely on instinct, he stroked her silky cheek with his other hand, dipped his head and brought his mouth to hers in a slow, tender press of lips.

The sheer electricity of the contact caused him to suck in a gasp of air. Stunned, he kissed her again, gently at first, and then with escalating desperate energy as the taste of her made his heart pound and his head swim. The moment his tongue felt the slick, hot interior of her mouth and he heard her moan, really moan, Nick knew he was lost.

Nick faintly registered the soft phlump of Boop slipping to the wooden floor as Sara reached her arms around his back and pulled her body closer to his. Nick found himself stepping forward as she stepped back until they found a wall for him to press her against. Her hands were in his hair and her short nails against his scalp were driving him insane. A shudder went through his whole body and he leaned forward, pushing closer to her until he felt one of her long, long legs leave the floor and wrap around his thigh. Nick groaned and felt his hips buck into hers involuntarily. His hands were buried in the cool threads of her hair with the thumbs running across the smooth skin of her ears and jaw.

He was drowning in the scent of her, in the feel of her heat pressed against his groin, in how she was tall enough that he felt like he could just keep kissing her for hours without getting a crick in his neck.

A shrill beeping cut through the air and made them both jump away from each other like kids caught necking on the porch. Both panting and wide-eyed, Nick stared at Sara in shocked wonder until his cell phone rang again and startled him out of his daze. Not taking his eyes from Sara's, Nick fumbled for his phone and held it to his ear. "Stokes."

"Nicky, man, you awake?"

"Hey, Warrick," pause to catch his breath. Sara nodded at him and turned to walk away. Nick grabbed her hand and pulled her against him in a loose, comfortable embrace. "Yeah, I'm up. Uh, Sara's already here to pick me up; we'll be in soon."

"Actually, that's why I was calling. Do you think you guys could swing by and get me? Tina's piece of shit Dodge, which she refuses to replace, wouldn't start tonight and I woke up to a note saying she was taking my car."

"Nice of her to leave the note, at least." Nick commented wryly. He felt the muscles of Sara's back relax into his chest and smiled as he absently rubbed his cheek in her hair.

"Yeah," Warrick's voice was unamused. "So, anyway, think you two could swing by and get me?"

"Of course, man, no problem. We'll see you in twenty."

"Thanks."

Nick flipped his phone closed and stuffed it into his pocket so he could wrap both arms around Sara and squeeze her in a tight hug. She grumbled something about needing to breathe, so he let go and stepped back a pace to look at her. Her cheeks were pink and her hair tousled, but she met his gaze steadily. Nick brushed a quick kiss against her forehead and asked, "Are we okay?"

Her lips twitched in a flirty, nervous smirk. "Well, I can't comment on myself, but I have to say you were much more than just okay."

Nick laughed, and couldn't resist retorting with, "That's what all the ladies... ow! Did you just pinch my ass?!"

"You asked for it," she had stepped back, her eyes sparkling and her hands fisted on her hips, "Mr. Mood Killer."

"Sorry," he reeled her back in, "you're just too much fun to tease."

One devilish eyebrow arched in response. "Fun to tease, eh?" Her hands moved sensually up his sides, trailed over the nape of his neck, and along his ears to trace his mouth. Nick shivered and felt all the blood rushing back to his groin. He licked his lips as her fingertips brushed his Adam's apple on the way to his pecs, and he gasped when they moved in a featherlight touch across his nipples. Nick leaned forward to kiss her, and she suddenly let him go and stepped back, an impish smile on her face. "You're right, Nick, teasing is lots of fun." She turned to grab her purse and his keys. "Ready to go? We'd better head out if we're going to be at Warrick's in twenty minutes."

Nick was pretty sure he looked like a goldfish, standing there with his mouth opening and closing but no words escaping until he finally croaked out, "Okay, you win." He snatched the keys from her hand, "But I'm driving, wild thing."

She bumped him with her hip and he looped an arm around her shoulders, locking the door and setting the alarm automatically. Their teasing continued as they piled into Nick's truck and headed over to Warrick's apartment.


	7. Chapter 7

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Seven

XXXXX

Thursday - Friday, Graveyard Shift

Although the car ride with Warrick had given them both a chance to cool down, Sara made a quick stop at locker and the ladies room for a comb-out and a reapplication of the lip gloss she'd lost in their impromptu makeout session, scrambling for her seat in the break room just as Grissom walked in with a grim expression and the night's assignments clamped in his hand.

It did not escape Nick's notice that Grissom avoided eye contact with both Nick and Sara, so he was flabbergasted to find himself paired with the man for a convenience store robbery that Grissom could have handled alone. When Nick asked, "What about the car fires?" Grissom merely responded that with no new evidence, the case only required one CSI to finish processing that which had already been collected, and Warrick was the lead on the case. "And Warrick, when you're done, page me."

When Nick looked across the room at Sara as they dispersed for their scenes or processing, her brow was furrowed and she looked worried. Nick made a point of walking past her in the doorway and managed a discreet squeeze of her upper arm and a quick smile, which she returned somewhat cautiously.

Nick followed Grissom's hunched shoulders to his SUV and the two men rode to the scene in absolute, painful silence. Nick noticed the waves of emotion radiating from the entomologist and after considering his options decided to just shut up and do his job, and let Grissom talk if he felt the need.

Not surprisingly, Grissom's pursed lips did not open until they arrived at the crime scene and he greeted Brass, at which point he became absorbed by the rhythms of his job and appeared to let go of whatever dark emotion had paralyzed him in the SUV. Nick was pleased to find that the two of them were able to work together harmoniously and when Warrick paged them a few hours later, they were already wrapping up their collection. Nick thought he would choke when he heard Grissom inform Warrick they would take a quick meal break and meet 'Rick back at the lab.

Grissom parked the SUV in front of the diner and requested the booth with the best view of the vehicle. They ordered, coffee was poured, and the two men faced each other directly for the first time all night. Nick bit his tongue to keep from speaking first; he forced himself to keep his expression neutral and meet his supervisor's gaze calmly.

After all, what the hell was he supposed to say to the guy? "Gee, Griss, I know you've been in love with Sara for years, but I've slept next to her twice in the past week, we've shared some of our deepest secrets, and we were necking in my living room this evening before work. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I'm pretty sure I'm in love with her, too. You snooze, you lose."

Nope. Best to keep his mouth shut and see what the man had to say. With Grissom you never knew.

He was spared a long wait. Grissom unclenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and proved to Nick that with Grissom, you truly never knew. "I first saw Sara when she was twenty-five years old. I was forty. She was sitting in the front row of a lecture hall and watched me like she expected me to start throwing thunderbolts at any moment. Her hair was short and wavy, and she had a streak of it dyed blue, which she'd tucked behind her left ear to try to make it less conspicuous.

"She must have asked thirty questions in three hours, and I could tell she'd restrained herself from asking more. The rest of the class would roll their eyes when her hand went up but no one confronted her. She was sitting by herself, and she'd put her winter coat and her backpack on the chairs on either side of her to stake out her territory." Grissom's mouth quirked up in his trademark wry smirk.

"After the lecture was over, she cornered me at the podium and interrogated me as I packed up my materials. She was the most energetic, _awake_ person I'd ever met. I finally asked her to join me for coffee at the student union. She helped carry my slide carousels, and we sat in a booth in the late-afternoon light, so I could see that her eyes were the exact same color as my black coffee in its white ceramic mug. She was wearing a red sweatshirt and jeans, and she smelled like tea roses." He paused, and added an aside. "She changed perfumes a few weeks ago. I've been a little out of sorts ever since."

Grissom seemed to run out of fuel and sat staring at Nick, looking lost.

Nick waited a moment, and decided to pick up the thread. "I was six stories above her throwing dummies off the roof of a parking garage. I could see you talking to a woman but I didn't know who she was. When we were finally introduced, I thought she was a knockout but too serious for me. Plus, once I saw her with you, I figured you two were together, or going to get together."

Nick could think of nothing to say next that would not hurt Grissom in some way, so he stopped.

Grissom nodded. "I've been extremely selfish. I couldn't let myself have her, but I couldn't let her go. It was unfair to her and she deserves better." He ran a hand through his gray curls and pinned Nick with his intense blue gaze. "She changed perfumes after we dug you up – after she found you – and I realized that I had finally lost her." He looked down at their coffee cups. "It hurts every bit as much as I always knew it would."

Nick couldn't help himself; he knew Grissom's loss was his own gain, but it was still a loss. "Why didn't you ever...?"

"Do anything about it? Pursue the woman I love?" Grissom looked suddenly ten years older as he fiddled with his silverware, shaking his head slowly. "I want more for her life than what I would ever have been able to give her. I know my limitations, and I know I love her, and I know she loved me, and I know that while I may have been what she wanted," he visibly braced himself and Nick was shocked to see tears in Grissom's eyes when he looked up, "you are what she needs."

Nick was unable to close his mouth and slumped back in the booth, hands splayed loosely on the tabletop. "What?"

"You. You said you watched her with me. Well, I watched her with you. You relax her, which I frankly did not think was possible. You draw her out of her shell in a way that doesn't threaten her. You engage with the world in a way I do not, and you have the right kinds of scars. Plus, you were willing to let your friendship with Sara impact your career decisions. When I saw that neither of you re-applied for that promotion, I started paying closer attention.

"When she stopped smelling like roses the day after we pulled you out of that box, I knew that she was yours. Sara doesn't do anything accidentally, and while she may be more subtle about it than Catherine, her feminine sensitivity is alive and well and she couldn't allow herself to fall in love with you smelling like she did when she was in love with me."

Nick was saved from having to come up with a reply to Grissom's unexpected soliloquy by the arrival of their food. Grissom seemed relieved and dug into his salad with gusto. Nick shoved the pasta around on his plate for a few minutes before he ventured, "You just... you seem to understand her so well."

"I've _studied_ her, Nick." Bitterness tinged Grissom's features as he continued, "It's what I do." Grissom put his fork down and regarded Nick seriously. "I'd like to ask you a favor."

"Sure, what?"

"I'll try to be a good sport about this whole situation as long as you try never to rub my nose in it."

Nick shook his head. "It's funny. This is the second time this week that one of you all has assumed that Sara and I have some big serious thing going. I care about Sara very much, don't get me wrong, but I'd hate for us to jinx ourselves right out of the starting gate because everyone was making assumptions." He held out his right hand, "I can promise you this: if things with Sara work out, I will try never to shove it in your face. Deal?"

Grissom's jaw was clenched, but he reached across the table and took Nick's calloused hand in his own larger, softer one. "Deal. And Nick, remember: only a fool would let her go."

Nick released his clasp and raised his coffee cup. "To foolish and honorable men."

Grissom started but raised his cup, and clinked it against Nick's. Nick picked up his fork and changed the subject to their case, asking just enough questions to get Grissom to relax.


	8. Chapter 8

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Eight

XXXX

Friday Morning

At the end of shift, Sara was leaning against the door frame of the DNA lab, waiting for results, so Nick wandered in to wait with her, plunking down on one of the empty stools and calling a "Hey" to Mia, who was tapping her fingers on the side of the printer. From across the lab, Greg waved at him and resumed what was clearly his current train of thought. "So, Nick, I was just trying to pry some information out of our reticent friend here."

Mia shook her head. "Can it, Greg. She's going to kick your butt if you keep this up, and I'll help her do it."

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," this with an exaggerated preen toward Mia, "I happened to notice our beautiful friend looked a bit flustered when she got to work this morning, _and_ she was late for shift yesterday, which to me adds up to the Big L."

"Liquid Latex?" Nick managed to keep a straight face but Mia snorted and Sara's glare was marred by a twitch of her lips.

Greg didn't miss a beat. "No, my dear Mr. Stokes, that would be the Big Double L. The Big L, on the other hand, is Luuuuuuuv. So, come on, Sara, give it up. Who's the lucky bastard who stole my girl?"

Sara's glare had reasserted itself. Mia, in an uncharacteristic show of mischief, threw the grenade. "Hey Greg, who says it's a guy?"

Greg's jaw dropped and his eyes glazed over. Nick laughed out loud and reached over to high-five Mia. "That worked. We won't hear a peep out of him for at least fifteen minutes."

The printer whirred to life and spat out Sara's results. Nick used the paper as an excuse to peer over her shoulder, noticing the warmth of Sara's faint sandalwood perfume with more appreciation than before. He managed to keep from touching her, but his conversation with Grissom flashed through his mind and his inner caveman sniffed appreciatively and growled, _Mine_.

"So?" Mia's voice cut in.

"Huh?" Sara's head snapped up and Nick jumped back to avoid getting his teeth knocked out.

"So, that match, is that to your suspect?"

"Uh," Sara's eyes frantically searched the paper and she cleared her throat. "Uh, yeah. Yes, thanks, Mia, that does it. I'd, uh, I'd better go call Brass and tell him to go ahead and arrest the guy."

She rushed from the room in a rustle of paper. Nick stood there watching her go with an amused grin before turning around to see two pairs of appraising eyes watching him. He felt his cheeks heat up, but strove for nonchalance. "Well, I'm heading out. I'll see you guys Sunday night – I'm off till then."

Mia said nothing but merely smiled before turning back to her test tubes. Greg's suddenly keen gaze skimmed over Nick before he shook his head. "Lucky bastard," he muttered. Nick froze briefly, but recovered and walked out of the room without looking back. "Mia, you Queen of DNA, you, aren't my results finished yet?" Greg's flirtatious bellow followed Nick down the hall toward the locker room.

He made it to his truck without further incident and called Sara's cell. "Sidle," came the abstracted answer.

"Hello, this is the lucky bastard who's hoping to steal you from Greg Sanders."

Her voice sounded more awake, "Oh, yeah? Is this my girlfriend?"

In the background, Nick heard Brass' voice. "Sara, who the hell are you talking to?"

Sara was laughing and he heard her turn her mouth from the phone a bit. "It's Nick. Mia was busting Greg's chops a little while ago, long story." Brass muttered something Nick couldn't hear, and Sara laughed again.

"So did you arrest the guy?"

"Yeah, he lawyered up, so I'm going to head out." Her voice sounded deliberately casual. "I'm off tonight, so I'll follow up Sunday night when I'm back."

Nick teased, "You're off tonight? What a coincidence! I'm off too, and I believe you have a wager to settle up."

"What? You did NOT win that bet, Nick, don't even try it."

He could hear Brass' voice closer to the phone, "Run for your life, Nicky!"

Sara's voice rustled away from the mouthpiece again, "Oh, my God, what are you, twelve? I'll see you later, Brass." Her footsteps clicked as she continued. "As I was saying, I believe we compromised."

"Yep. Should I pick you up at eight or would you rather go later?"

"Depends, where are you taking me?"

"Hmmm. How about McDonalds?" He teased.

"No paper napkins, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, in that case, just wear something casual but nicer than jeans."

"Excuse me?"

"Sara, how many sisters do I have?"

Her chuckles were preceded by a snort. "I keep forgetting that about you. You're well trained. Okay, casual but nicer than jeans it is, and eight is fine." She paused, then added shyly, "I'm looking forward to it."

Nick felt his chest tighten and his voice was soft when he answered, "Yeah, me too. I'd like to kiss you again."

She sounded a little breathless, "That sounds good."

Her voice was turning him on. This was ridiculous. He was thirty-seven, not seventeen, for crying out loud. "Okay, well, if I want to be able to get some shut-eye, I'd better get going. I'll see you tonight."

"See ya."

Although Nick had been planning to go straight home to bed, he was so wound up after his phone call, he changed lanes and aimed his truck for the gym. Best to burn off some of this nervous energy or he'd never get any sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Nine

XXXXX

Friday Night, 8:00pm

The bouquet of Gerbera daisies in his hand made him feel like a sap, but Nick had wanted to show Sara that this wasn't just about paying off a lame bet -- that he wanted this dinner to mean something – and roses seemed too conventional for a woman like Sara. Despite his conversations with Warrick and Grissom, Nick still felt a bit unmoored about the whole situation.

Nick had his usual first date scenario down pat. A stylish, well-pressed shirt with the first two buttons open, his good belt and slacks, a little shine on the shoes, his more expensive cologne, a couple of roses, and a restaurant that seemed appropriate for most of the women he dated. Usually trendy and loud, just pricey enough that she knew he was making the effort, without going overboard and looking like a chump or a sleazeball. Drinks afterward at a classy music club Warrick had told him about, and perhaps back to her place if the evening went really well.

Sara wasn't going to fall for any of that crap. Sara had participated in his conversations with Greg and Warrick about some of his more wild experiences, and Sara was on to his usual first-date plan because he'd opened his big fucking Texas mouth several years ago and told her about it. At the time, she'd merely shaken her head and called him a cretin.

No, he'd realized at the gym this morning that none of his usual routine was going to be appropriate for Sara. He was going to have to start from scratch. He'd been on the treadmill when he'd had that particular epiphany and he'd nearly fallen off the machine, much to the amusement of the cute twentysomething personal trainer who he'd noticed checking out his ass when he'd arrived.

He'd spent the next hour wracking his brain for ideas and coming up with nothing. The pressure he'd been putting on himself wasn't helping. This was their first real date. Nick's realization that he wanted to tell their kids about this someday had been too much. He'd dropped his free weights, made his way quickly to the locker room, and put his face between his knees, trying not to hyperventilate.

Finally the devils of insecurity and fear which had been whispering in his ear all morning gave him a break, and his inner voice of reason got a word in edgewise. _It's just Sara, you dope._ His breathing settled. _You know her, she knows you. Pick something you think she'd like, or something you'd like to show her._

And that, finally, had given him his idea.

So, it was eight o'clock, he had a fist full of flowers and cellophane, and he was raising his hand to knock on her door.

His first thought when the door opened was that Sara wasn't wearing pants. His gaze was caught on those fabulously long, seldom-seen, pale, freckle-dusted legs for longer than was really polite and he finally dragged his eyes up to her face, where amusement and annoyance warred for supremacy. "Wow. You look gorgeous. I, uh, brought you some flowers, I thought you liked purple." He thrust the bouquet toward her unceremoniously.

Smooth, Stokes. Women will throw their panties at you as you walk down the street, that's how smooth you are.

Sara didn't seem to mind. She was taking in his neatly pressed jeans, old but polished cowboy boots, and snap-front Western-cut shirt with a smile as she took the flowers. "Thank you. I thought you said nicer than jeans."

Nick's blood flow had had time to redirect to his brain at this point and he caught up to the conversation. "Don't worry, Sar, you'll be perfect as long as you can dance in those shoes." He took a moment to appreciate that she was wearing flat-soled sandals; in very high heels she would probably be taller than him. Not that he really minded, but there was something old-fashioned and nice about ...

"What?! _Dancing_?" They'd wandered into her apartment and he was looking around as she rummaged for a vase when she whirled and glared at him. "Who said anything about dancing? I thought we were going to dinner!"

"We are _also_ going to dinner." Nick smirked at her flustered babbling.

"Nick! I can't dance! Do you have any idea how drunk I have to be to actually get up and dance? Are you crazy?" 

He cut her off with a gentle hand on her cheek and his mouth brushing against hers. She stopped talking and leaned toward him, deepening the kiss until they were both breathless. Nick put his forehead against hers. "Sara, do you trust me?"

"What?" Flushed cheeks and slightly unfocused brown eyes pulled away and looked up at him.

"Do you trust me?"

She blinked and squinted at him skeptically, "I suppose."

"Good enough. Let's get going. You're going to have fun, I promise."


	10. Chapter 10

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Ten – SMUT alert

XXXXX

"So, as much as I strongly considered that steakhouse, or a barbecue joint, to keep up with my Texas theme for this evening, I wanted to eat somewhere you could get a good vegetarian meal, so voila."

The Indian restaurant was a few blocks off the Strip, and its bland, stucco exterior belied the homey yet exotic dining room with its gold-painted statues and curry-scented air. Nick held the door for her. "Do you want to sit on the floor with the cushions or at a table with chairs?"

Sara's face was rapturous and she was clasping his hand tightly between hers. He was pretty sure she was one small step away from jumping up and down. "On the floor, I'll manage with this stupid skirt somehow. Nick, this is fantastic! Did you know I've been looking for good Indian food since I moved to Vegas? It was one of the big things I missed from Frisco – we had this great little place with fabulous murgh saag and shahi korma that my team and I went to about once a week. The waiters all knew us – they were the sons and nephews of the family that owned the place – and they'd sneak us tastes of the new dishes whenever they changed the menu." Sara's excitement was palpable, and she was gesturing with both hands, even though one was still wrapped around Nick's.

"The mother always wore these gorgeous saris, and it was her family recipes they used for the specials. She used to tease the other women and I that it was a shame we weren't Indian because she'd love to marry off her sons to girls who loved her cooking." Sara smiled at the memory. "If I remember correctly, the woman they hired to replace me was from India; I wonder what happened with that... You're awesome, Nick. I hadn't thought about that in ages, and this place smells fantastic. For this, I will even forgive the two-stepping you're going to make me do later."

She grinned at him, and Nick burst out laughing and pulled her into an affectionate bear hug. The words slipped out so easily their importance didn't register. "I love you, Sara, I really do. You are somethin' else." He pressed a fast kiss to her hair just as the hostess greeted them.

Five minutes later, they were sipping mango lassis and sitting cross-legged on silky pillows in a quiet corner. Sara had tucked her skirt around her as modestly as she could, and now was scanning the menu intently, formulating a plan. "So, if we each get something different, we can share, and we can get both rice and bread – ooh, naan, I can't wait! -- and we should definitely save room for dessert."

Their waiter was a handsome man in his mid-twenties who clearly was charmed by Sara's enthusiasm. As he chatted with Nick and Sara, they learned that he had grown up in Vegas and was now a medical student home on summer break to help work in his grandparents' restaurant. The three of them had a lively, fairly graphic conversation about forensic pathology and cadavers which they finally cut short when they noticed the horrified stares of the other diners.

When it came time to order dessert, Samir leaned in confidentially. "Listen, my grandmother would kick my ass for telling you this, but the truth is, this isn't the best place to get dessert. Do you like chocolate?" Nick and Sara both nodded. "Okay, two blocks north of here is a little Tapas restaurant called A Taste of Heaven. Go in there and order the chocolate souflee. It's fantastic." Giving Nick a wink, he added, "That stuff's gotten me lucky a couple of times. Chicks dig it."

Sara rolled her eyes and all three of them laughed. Nick made sure to leave a huge tip and Sara promised Samir many return visits and shoved a take-out menu in her purse. They shook hands as they left.

Deciding to walk to the Tapas place, Nick slung an arm around Sara's shoulders. She snuggled closer and wrapped her own arm around Nick's waist, her hand splayed open-palmed against the side of his abdomen in a way that was making him wonder exactly how lucky that chocolate souflee was, and reconsider how much he wanted to take Sara dancing versus simply ravishing her in the back of his truck.

Bracing himself, Nick resisted the temptation. He was going to do this right, which did not mean (however much fun it sounded) a quickie in the truck bed on their first real date.

As promised, the souflee was meltingly delectable, causing Sara to close her eyes and moan in such pleasure that Nick had to rearrange the napkin on his lap. After the third moan, Nick caught her smirking at him knowingly and he scolded her for plotting to steal all the souflee for herself by distracting him, then helped himself to a huge forkful of the dark, rich dessert.

The honky-tonk was crowded and noisy. Nick fetched beers from the bar while Sara established them at a small corner table with a view of the dance floor. Leaning close, he yelled to be heard. "I promise I'll only make you dance the slow songs. Actually, I don't even know any of the newer line dances, it's been years since I've done this."

They sipped their beers and people-watched, the music being too loud for real conversation, and occasionally Sara would nudge him with her foot and point her beer bottle at someone particularly noteworthy. One guy had a brightly-colored tattoo that looked like a life-sized snake coiled around his arm. Another was trying to ride the mechanical bull but was obviously plastered and unwilling to let go of his beer long enough to balance himself on the leather seat.

They were snickering over the seventy-something woman in the tight denim mini-skirt who was badgering her eighty-something date for ogling the bartender – and spraying him with Bud from the long-neck she was waving as she hollered -- when the DJ announced a change in pace: "A classic by Alison Krauss, for all of you who were waiting for a slow song in the dark." With that, the lights on the dance floor dimmed and the boisterous, twangy guitar was replaced by a woman's sweet soprano. Nick grabbed Sara by the hand and dragged her toward the crowd of dancers.

The two-steppers were circling the outside of the dance floor. Deciding quickly to forgo teaching Sara the steps tonight, Nick pulled her to the center, where the couples were content to sway and swirl to their own rhythm. He pulled them into the traditional dance position at first; they smiled at each other as they swayed back and forth. "I've always liked this song," Nick told her.

Sara listened for a moment, "Beautiful voice. I like the lyrics." He nodded in return, letting his gaze flicker over the curves of her face and basking in the warmth of her regard. They moved without speaking, watching one another and enjoying the surprising peace of the moment and the gentleness of the song itself. _The smile on your face lets me know that you need me; there's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me; a touch of your hand says you'll catch me whenever I fall... _

"It's a very romantic song, Nick." Sara smiled at him, and her left hand moved from his shoulder to brush tenderly across his cheek. "You know, you really are a very sweet man." She looked wistful for a moment. "It's a rare breed."

Nick found his thumb automatically stroking along the bottom of her shirt, gradually working under the material so he could feel the incredible smoothness of her skin beneath his fingertips. At first contact, he could feel a shiver go through her. Without further prompting, she stepped close and leaned her cheek against his. Feeling the contours of her body in its thin skirt and light sweater caused Nick to groan softly, "God, woman, what you do to me..."

The huskiness of her voice made the hair on the back of his neck stand up as she confessed, "Believe me, Nick, the feeling's mutual."

He pulled his nose from her hair far enough to meet her eyes and was stunned at the frank desire he found there. The heat from her body was making him flush, and he pulled their hands in to his chest, placed her palm against his sternum so she could feel his heart racing, then leaned forward to brush his lips against hers. Dizzy from the contact, he muttered her name before dipping his head again and kissing her with more purpose. Dimly, Nick was aware that they had given up all pretense of dancing, and that his hand was traveling in the general direction of Sara's breasts.

She moaned in his ear, the heat of her breath making him pant. "Ooohhh, Nick, I think you'd better take us home before we get arrested."

Mutely, he nodded, and with his hands on her hips, walked her in front of him off the dance floor and out of the bar, hoping the beautiful woman would distract people from noticing his raging hard-on.

They made it to his truck without incident, but as he pulled out of the parking lot, she put her hand high on his thigh and spoke in the throaty whisper that drove all rational thought from his brain, "Your place is closer."

Nick's foot twitched and he involuntarily slammed on the brakes, almost causing a pile-up behind them. His voice cracked as he ground out, "Jesus Christ, Sara, you're going to make me wreck the truck!"

She withdrew her hand and sat back, "Sorry." The unrepentant smirk on her face belied her words. Nick gritted his teeth and concentrated on the road. It was quiet in the truck for a few minutes as Nick tried to operate the vehicle safely while half his blood volume was in his groin. Sara fiddled with the radio until she found an Eighties rock station and started humming along with an old Heart tune. Nick's hands gripped the steering wheel even tighter at the sound, trying vainly not to think of other uses for that particular skill. Ecklie's bald head... cleaning bird crap off his car... human soup in a bathtub in July...

By ignoring the woman next to him, he had just managed to calm down when he heard Sara sigh contentedly, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her reach up and stretch her arms above her head and her legs out as far as she could. Her shirt rode up and exposed a sliver of pale abdomen, and, surprise of surprises, a pierced navel. Nick swerved and pulled the car into the next side street, braking abruptly and throwing the transmission into park. Sara's arms flopped back to her sides, and she turned toward him, startled. "Nick? What -"

Her next words were swallowed by his mouth descending on hers as Nick crawled partly across the console and threaded his fingers through her hair and his other hand along the side of her neck. It took her half a second to catch up, and she pulled away, looked him in the eyes, and then reconnected their mouths in a hot slide of wet, deep kisses that had Nick's hands shaking. He felt her shift and her next move devastated his usual sexual self-assurance and made him think he was actually out of his league: without removing her tongue from his mouth, Sara managed to unbuckle her seat belt and swing herself over the console so she was straddling his lap. Nick was pretty sure he whimpered.

The feel of her against him was incendiary, and Nick slid his hands down along the sides of her neck and under her breasts. He felt her moan as his fingers circled the nipples whose tightness he could feel through her sweater. Her hands were everywhere: in his hair, along his chest, now moving along his skin under the front of his shirt, now scratching lightly back to his hips, now reaching behind her to slide up the inside of his thighs under her bottom. Nick was sweating by the time he got one hand up under her skirt, and when he found himself cupping her bare ass and discovering that Sara either was wearing a thong or had gone al fresco, it was all he could do to keep from coming right there. He had to slow this down or the night would be over before it began -- or he at least needed to move them to the back seat where the windows were darkly tinted, so they wouldn't attract the attention of a passing cop car, which would lead to embarrassing camera phone pictures at work.

Work. His mind flashed to an image of everyone at the lab, at PD, standing around a monitor, watching him in the box. Watching him now, fumbling in the front seat of his truck with a coworker.

What was he doing? This was Sara. He couldn't do this to Sara. He was going to fuck this up; he always did. His hands slowed, then stilled on her writhing hips. He couldn't do this. Nick opened his eyes, saw the glass windows in front of him and the unseen dark beyond them, and felt his chest tighten painfully. She was holding him down. The car was too small. He couldn't get out. His seat belt was buckled and the car doors were closed, and her hands were everywhere. The ants were everywhere. Panicked, Nick tried to pull his mouth from hers, tried to gasp for breath. Sara followed his lips blindly, still caught up in the moment she had not yet realized had passed, and felt his cheekbone hit her nose as Nick turned his head forcefully to the side, panting. He could see her confused face morph into shock, then hurt, then finally comprehension as his hands started pushing her away and slapping for the door handle. "I can't... I've got to..."

Quickly, Sara reached past him, opened the door, and vaulted clumsily out of the truck. Nick tried to follow but the seat belt held him fast. He couldn't breathe. "No, no, no, NO!" Frantically, he tugged at the straps. Sara managed to dodge most of his flailings to stretch across his body and wrestle the buckle out of its housing before jumping back out of the way as Nick clambered from of the driver's seat and landed gracelessly on his knees on the road before regaining his footing long enough to dive for the back of the truck and vomit.

Nick hung on to the truck bed, leaning his head against the cool sheet metal and looking up at the sky. Trying to remember what the department counselor had told him, he worked to slow his breathing. He kept his eyes open, focusing carefully on what was really there in front of him. Dark street, this street lamp was out but the others were still lit. An old warehouse which looked abandoned. Trash skittering and scratching along the empty sidewalk. This was not a safe part of town, but they appeared to be alone for the moment. They. Sara. Oh, God. He closed his eyes and listened. To his own breathing, to the traffic on the road behind them, to the engine still running and the faint radio noise from his truck. He couldn't hear her. She wasn't in his field of vision; he couldn't feel her touching him. Had she left? _Probably,_ the bitter voice in his head supplied. _Would you stick around with someone as fucked up as you?_

Bracing himself, he stood upright and turned on shaky legs. Sara stood with her back to the open door of his truck, paler than he'd ever seen her, with a faint smear of blood under her nose and an expression on her face he couldn't identify at first because he'd never seen it before. When he met her eyes, she twisted her mouth into a parody of a smile and stood up straighter. That's when it hit him. _Fear._ She was afraid of him. His eyes flicked back to her small, pointed nose and the blood on her upper lip. He had hit her. Shame flooded him and Nick closed his eyes to hide the sudden anger at himself. His voice was rough. "God, Sara, I'm so sorry." His eyes were burning. "You must think I'm no better than your father." He buried his face in his hands.

Within seconds, her gentle fingers were in his hair, tugging softly at his hands until he looked up and met her eyes. Stunned, he saw the fear had vanished, and her face was full of that odd tenderness he was beginning to associate with moments when he had exceeded her expectations. Her voice was calm and soft, but firm. "No, Nick, you could never be him." She pulled his fingertips to her mouth and pressed a soft kiss there. "I'm the one who's sorry. I got carried away. You had a flashback, didn't you?"

The total acceptance in her eyes was too much. Nick reached out and gathered her close, perching his chin on her shoulder and breathing in the scent of her hair and perfume, careful to keep his vomit-tainted breath away from her nose. He nodded.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He tightened his arms around her shoulders and shook his head. "Not now. Later, maybe, if you don't mind. I'm so tired. I've been tired for the past three weeks."

She stayed still in his embrace and let him hold her for long minutes as the cars whizzed past on the road behind them. Finally, he stepped back, his arms bracketing her shoulders, and met her eyes. She nodded, swooped forward for a fast kiss to his cheek, and winked as she hopped into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut before he could beat her to it. Nick shook his head as he walked around the front of the truck and climbed in on the passenger side for the ride back to his place. By the time she'd turned back onto the main road, he had her hand tightly in his. Sara drove one-handed the entire way, turning at stoplights to smile at him. Neither of them spoke. Nick was surprised at how comfortable the silence was, and his eyes drifted shut, though he didn't fall asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Eleven

XXXX

By the time they pulled in to his driveway, Nick found himself fully awake, and suddenly too wired from his earlier panic attack to go back inside. Sara must have seen him hesitate as he got out of the truck, because he felt her arm around his shoulders and heard her voice close to his ear. "You know, I could go for a walk. It's too nice a night to stay in."

Nick smiled broadly at her, then insisted on running inside to brush his teeth and get them a bottle of water before they set off. She sat on the front steps and stretched her legs out in front of her to wait. Nick took his time brushing his teeth and gargling the vomit taste out of his mouth until he could only smell mint when he breathed on his hand. A quick splash of water over his face, a once-over in the mirror, and a quick smoothing of his hair with his hand later, and Nick grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and locked the door behind him on the way out. On the tiny porch, he paused.

Sara's long legs were crossed at the ankle and she had leaned her head back to look up at the sky, her elbows propping her up at an odd angle. Her slim, pale neck gleamed in the porch light and when she caught sight of him, she gave him her wide, gapped-toothed smile and heaved herself to her feet, brushing dust from the back of her skirt. Unable to resist, Nick descended the steps in one leap, pulled her close, and kissed her smiling mouth. "You are beautiful, Sara."

She pulled away, her smile growing even wider, and a wicked gleam glowing in her eyes. "So are you, Nick. Gorgeous."

Nick shook his head, rolled his eyes, and decided to follow her lead and keep things light. "I'm not gorgeous. I'm a skinny guy with a big head. If I didn't lift weights as much as I do, I'd look like a lollipop."

That did it. Sara's eyes grew rounder and larger, and she stepped back, held him at arm's length, and examined him head to toe. Nick felt his lips twitch in an effort to keep a straight face as she suddenly whooped, clapped a hand over her mouth, and began to giggle helplessly. Nick looped his arm around her and pulled her down the walk, both of them still laughing.

Ten minutes later, Sara discovered the tiny local park and kicked off her sandals to walk barefoot in the grass. Nick convinced her to join him on the swingset: "C'mon, Sara, I know your inner child's in there somewhere – let her out for a few minutes!" Their swinging quickly escalated into a contest to see who could go higher, and they struggled to keep quiet enough not to disturb the neighbors with their trash-talk and laughter.

Sara pumped harder, and when she reached the apex of her swing, flung herself into the air. Nick let his legs go slack and enjoyed the view of her skirt billowing up to her thighs until she made a solid landing several feet away. He followed her and savored the brief moment of flight before landing heavily on the ground and getting mud on his knees. Sara pulled him to his feet and helped him brush off the dirt. He led her over to the jungle gym where they climbed to the top and lay back on the platform, watching the night sky. Nick enjoyed the quiet for a few minutes before asking, "Did I ever tell you about going paragliding?"

Sara rolled onto her side, propped herself up on one elbow, and favored him with a raised eyebrow. "Not yet."

"I went after that case of the DB that landed on the sidewalk from 15,000 feet. God, that was amazing. You basically run off the edge of a cliff, and you get pulled up instead of down. I drifted for a while. It's incredible, Sara, it's so quiet. You're alone, but you can see everything. I think if I were a bird, I'd never land. Except maybe to eat."

Sara chuckled and reached a hand over to run through his hair. Nick let his eyes drift shut and shifted closer to her, so when she spoke, he could hear her voice resonating through her chest. "You sound like Jonathan Livingston Seagull."

"Who?"

"It's a book about a seagull who breaks away from the flock because he loves flying so much; it's really about individuality. I have a copy at home; I'll lend it to you, I think you'd appreciate it. I read it when I was a kid."

She was quiet for a minute, so he prompted, "Tell me a happy memory from your childhood. I've heard about the bad stuff; now tell me something you liked."

The hand in his hair slowed but did not stop, and when he opened his eyes, she looked pensive for a moment before her lips lifted in a small but genuine smile. "Well, I told you about Boop. My Nanna used to invite me over, especially if she knew things were bad at home, and we'd bake cookies together. She'd let me snitch the batter, as much as I wanted. She always warned me I'd get sick, but I never did and she never stopped me from snitching."

Nick pulled Sara's hand from his hair to press a kiss to her palm. She ran her thumb across his cheek. "Nanna was trying to convince Mom and Dad to let me come live with her when she died. I often wonder if that would have changed how things turned out." Sara leaned in and pressed a fast kiss to his forehead. She shifted position to resume stroking his hair and asked, "How about you? Tell me one of your good childhood memories."

Nick thought for a long moment, then met her eyes with determination. "Actually, I told you some funny ones the other night. Do you mind if I kill the mood and tell you about something bad that I think is important for you to know?"

"Of course I don't mind." Sara's hand stilled.

"Would you keep...? That feels really good." He gestured toward his head. Sara's concerned frown lightened briefly and she traced her fingertips along his hairline and her thumb along his eyebrows. Nick could feel his gut tightening but he forced the words out with somewhat less effort than he had feared. "I was molested when I was nine."

Sara sat up entirely. "What?"

He knew she'd heard the first time and didn't repeat himself. "I'm the youngest, and usually one of my sisters would babysit me, but one afternoon, everyone must have had plans, because my mom called this woman who lived a couple miles away. I think one of my sisters knew her. She, uh, I woke up with her in my bed, touching me. I was a kid, and I was confused and didn't really know what was going on. I'd heard the birds and bees stuff, but what she did..." He paused, then added, "I never told my parents, and they never found out about it."

Sara nodded, keeping her bright, sad eyes on his.

Nick found himself sharing some of his musings from the other day. "I'm cool with sex, you know, it's fun and it feels good, but I've always had trouble with trust. I've had relationships, but they don't usually get too serious emotionally." He paused, then added, "I think that's why I wanted to tell you. I've only ever told a couple of people – Catherine knows because she caught me upset over a case. I'm – obviously -- very attracted to you, which is new for me because we also know each other so well, and I guess I'm worried about how I'll react if we let things get serious. My little freak-out earlier wasn't just about the box." He felt himself blushing and kept his eyes closed. "I'm going to mess this up, Sara, it's just a matter of time."

Sara's arms were around him so tightly he was unable to take a deep breath. He chuffed a laugh as he returned her embrace. Without warning, her voice close to his ear was unexpectedly loud. "I was eleven."

He froze, his hands clutching her back. She continued, "He did it fourteen times, always on nights when he was drunk and Mom was at work. It started a few weeks before Nanna died. I told her, and she told Mom, but Mom didn't believe it until she came home early from work and caught him in my room. That was the catalyst for that last big fight when she finally killed him. Because of me. She couldn't leave him for herself, but she could kill him for me. I've never been able to decide whether to love her or hate her, so I end up doing both."

They both stared at each other, silent, dry-eyed, in a moment of complete understanding.

XXXX

Upon arriving back at Nick's house, they agreed on their traditional fare of a comedy and food, but this time with pajamas and hot chocolate. Nick took his tee shirt and plaid cotton pants into the bathroom, giving Sara the bedroom to change into some of his old sweats. When he came out, he found her standing next to his neatly made bed, looking utterly adorable in his oversized LVPD sweatpants and Longhorns tee, holding a pillow in her arms, and laughing. Nick followed her gaze and saw Boop and Bear lying next to each other. Slightly defensive, he retorted, "I thought they looked cute together."

Sara wiped her eyes on his pillow and kissed him tenderly. "They do."

Still somewhat embarrassed, Nick explained, "I found Boop on the floor in the living room when I got home from work this morning, and this seemed like the best place for him. You know, until I could give him back to you."

She kissed him again. "It is." She gave him a wide smile and nudged him in the general direction of the kitchen. "You make the cocoa, I'll pick out the movie."

They made it through the sword fight between Inigo Montoya and the Dread Pirate Roberts before falling asleep on the couch. The blue screen woke Nick at about three a.m., and he extricated himself from Sara's embrace, silently placed the mugs in the sink and clicked off the television before giving himself the secret thrill of picking Sara up and carrying her to bed. He fell back to sleep happy that she had bypassed Boop and snuggled up to him instead.


	12. Chapter 12

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Twelve

XXXXXX

SATURDAY MORNING

Nick's nose woke first. Sandalwood and flowers, warm sleepy woman smell. _Sara_, his brain supplied, which woke his skin, which was curled comfortably around Sara's long, lean body with his face against her silky brown hair. He tightened the arm around her waist and felt her wriggle even closer and sigh.

Sara. Who would've guessed he'd end up loving Sara? A prickly, tomboyish scientist with a dark past and a soft heart hidden beneath layers of smartmouthed defensiveness. How had Grissom described her when they'd first met? Awake, that was it. She crackled with manic energy most of the time. Yet during these past few weeks of spending quiet time with her, and these past few days of real talking, Nick knew he had fallen, hard, for the woman behind the forcefield. He smiled and buried his face in her hair, mumbling, "I think I could develop an addiction to waking up like this."

"Hmmmm, yeah, me too." Sara yawned, turned in his embrace, and pushed him onto his back, laying her head on his chest and draping an arm and leg across his body. "I like listening to your heart beating."

Nick smiled. "Glad I'm a live one, and not a cold one, eh?"

Her head lifted and her eyes were unexpectedly serious. "I'm very glad you're alive. I don't know what I would have done if we hadn't found you." Nick reached up to try to kiss the sadness from her face. She let him, then pulled back a bit to look him in the eye. "You're very important to me, Nick." Her cheeks flushed. "I, uh, I love you, too."

The emotion in her eyes stole his breath at first, so Nick nodded and leaned his forehead against hers for a moment, before pulling back, returning her intense gaze, and whispering, "You caught that, eh? I thought I'd managed to sneak that one by you."

Her mouth brushed his gently and her eyes were shining. "I caught that." Nick's hands were starting to stray under the hem of her tee shirt when his stomach growled so loudly that Sara broke the kiss by laughing against his mouth. "You just can't get lucky, can you?"

Nick produced the biggest, cheesiest grin he could summon, and thickened his drawl. "Oh, but darlin', any time I'm with you, I'm the luckiest man alive."

He was rewarded with one of Sara's snorts and eye rolls as she disentangled from him and heaved herself up out of bed. "Okay, for the record, corny remarks like that will not get you laid." Nick rolled onto his stomach, gave her a pout and blinked his lashes fetchingly. She shook her head as she turned and headed for the bathroom. "Neither will puppy-dog eyes, but just so you know, the bed-head is working in your favor." Her laughter trailed behind her as she pulled the door shut. They traded places a few minutes later, before meeting in the hallway. Sara smiled hesitantly. "I hope you don't mind, but I started some coffee."

Nick grinned at her. "Awesome. I'm just going to brush my teeth before I start my morning checklist."

As he suspected, she took the bait. "You have a morning checklist? Good God, what have I gotten myself into? Nick? What morning checklist?" Nick ignored her and headed back to the bathroom, pleased with himself as Sara trailed after him, peppering him with questions. Nick pulled the Colgate from the shelf behind the mirror, then reached into the undersink cabinet, fished out an unopened toothbrush, and handed it to her. She eyed it suspiciously. "How many of those do you have?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "I do NOT keep a stash of toothbrushes to present to my many conquests as a souvenir, if that's what you're wondering. I like clean teeth, and I just restocked the house at the grocery store last week."

He pulled his own brush from the rack and they stood side by side, absently brushing. After a minute, he glanced at her in the mirror. Nick pulled the brush from his mouth and mumbled around his mouthful of foam. "I did not think it was possible, but you are actually managing to pout and brush your teeth simultaneously."

Sara stuck out her foamy tongue and swiped at his nose with her toothbrush, leaving a white spot. Nick narrowed his eyes, left the suds on his nose while he finished brushing, then stood by with his arms crossed, waiting to pounce. Sara's eyes glittered as she deliberately took her time, rinsed thoroughly, and placed the toothbrush in the rack by the sink. As soon as her hand was empty, Nick grabbed her, pinned her hands to her sides, and rubbed his toothpaste-tainted nose against her cheek. She shouted and wiggled partially from his grasp, so he lifted her and carried her from the bathroom. "Hey! Put me down, Nick! Nick! You caveman! Put me down!"

Nick started making grunting noises in response to the caveman comment. Sara was giggling like a fiend, and reaching around to tickle him into letting her go. She found a hot spot along his hip that caused him to yelp and drop her so that they ended up in a tangled heap on the floor of the living room. Sara got her knees on top of his hands and pinned him to the floor, waggling her fingers over as much of his body as she could reach until Nick started to hyperventilate from laughing.

Looking concerned, Sara let up her grip for a moment. "Nick, are you okay?"

"Hah!" Nick took advantage of her good nature and flipped them over to return the favor. Keeping her loosely restrained in a cage of his arms and legs, Nick put his face to Sara's neck and started blowing raspberries. She yelped before giving in to helpless laughter. "Awgh! Gross! Okay, uncle! Uncle!"

Nick stayed hovering over her, watching her mirthful face as they both calmed somewhat. Unable to resist her smile, he lowered his body until he could feel her from chest to hips, and grinned broadly when he felt her feet caress over the backs of his calves. He whispered, "I love watching you laugh, Sara," just before his lips met hers. They kissed leisurely, enjoying the feel of each other's mouths, and a few minutes later, Nick pulled back and looked down at her face. "So, my checklist."

She blinked. "Uh, yeah?"

"If I'm going to get any of that stuff done today, I need you to come with me into the other room."

Sara's brows knit in puzzlement. "Um, sure."

They levered themselves up off the living room rug and Nick pulled her by the hand into the bedroom before pushing her back down into the blankets. Sara smirked. "Nick, exactly what is on this list of yours, anyway?"

Nick put his face down close to hers and gave her his best wicked look and his deepest drawl. "I want to make you scream my name."

_Wow. Note to self, try that approach again._ Nick watched in amazement as her pupils dilated until her eyes went from brown to black, and she licked her lips and raised one eyebrow, challenging, "Not if I make you scream first."


	13. Chapter 13

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Thirteen – MAJOR SMUT ALERT!! SKIP THIS CHAPTER IF THAT OFFENDS YOU!

XXXXX

So, she won. Nick was willing to chalk it up to being a fun bet to lose, since one advantage to having a girlfriend who was trained in weaponless defense was that she knew all kinds of fun ways to pin him on the bed and have her way with him. He'd been sucking on her collarbones and making her squirm and moan when she suddenly hooked one leg around his, grabbed his shoulders, and flipped him. Nick's "Hey!" died on his lips and became, "Oh, _God_, Sara!" when her hand had dipped under the waistband of his pants and started skimming lightly along the length of his erection, over the cotton boxer briefs, which suddenly felt way too constricting.

Nick felt his eyes roll back in his head and he gripped the sheets on either side of his body. He let out a ragged moan, begging her shamelessly, "Please, Sara..."

She obliged. Oh, God, did she oblige. Her warm, smooth hand slid under his shorts against his bare skin. He jumped and pressed against her palm, then found himself scrambling to push his pants down enough to let her touch him more. She helped him with one hand, never stopping her maddening caresses with the other.

Nick heard gasping moans and realized they were his own as she grazed her fingernails along the length of his now bare thighs, tracing upward until she reached his balls, then continuing until she had him palmed. Nick moved his thighs further apart to give her better access. He heard a rustling, then felt hot breath along his shaft.

His eyes slammed open and he lifted his head to the stupefying sight of Sara Sidle with her lips millimeters from his cock, eyes closed and inhaling his scent with obvious pleasure. He felt himself throb, and as her lips hovered over the head, her eyes met his and the intensity of her gaze burned as much as her hot, wet mouth closing over his erection while she began her wickedly slow downward slide. Nick struggled to keep his eyes open, and heard himself start to ramble, "Oh, God, darlin', too much, too good, I can't, I can't, I'm gonna, oh, Sara, love you, please, can't stop, ah, God, Sara, so good, ooohhhhh..."

His hands spasmed helplessly against the sheets with the sultry rasp of her tongue, grasped her hair when she slid just the tip of him between her lips, and finally reached above his head to hold the pillow over his mouth as his moaning devolved into inarticulate howls when he felt that smooth, wet heat take him all the way in to her throat and swallow. His entire body convulsed in perfect release and Nick thought he might have blacked out for a moment, because when he came back to himself, Sara had pulled the pillow from his face and was full-length next to him, stroking his hair and pressing small kisses to his cheeks. His arms were locked tightly around her torso and he was still breathing hard. He licked his lips. "Okay, so you made me scream first."

Her pupils were dilated and her cheeks flushed. She ground her still-clothed pelvis against his, and whispered, "Yes I did. Do you have any idea how much that turned me on?"

Nick's jaw dropped. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the fifteen-year-old boy he'd once been was jumping up and down hollering, "This one! I like this one!" Fortunately, the thirty-seven year-old man hung onto his cool enough to raise one eyebrow and reply, "Is that so? Well, we'll just have to do something about that."

His fingers started teasing an erect nipple through the fabric of her tee shirt, their hips were electric with contact as she writhed against him, and he was nipping just behind her ear with his front teeth. Sara was alternately moaning and sighing but she managed to reach down to the hem and start working her shirt off. Nick paused in his ministrations to help her pull it over her head, then took a moment to enjoy the view.

He pushed himself up on his arms and stared until Sara fidgeted and tried to cover herself back up. "Beautiful," he mumbled, then moved his mouth and hand to her freckled, cupcake breasts. Her head dropped back to the pillow and her arms splayed loosely to her sides. Her breathy, "Oh, Nick..." sent another rush of blood to his groin, and the taste of her skin was making him lose track of his original plan to make her come with just his hands and mouth.

Nick alternated dragging his teeth gently over her nipple and cupping her other breast in his palm, rubbing his thumb along the underside. He found himself murmuring endearments between kisses, which would probably have made her laugh if she hadn't been busy making little whimpering noises.

He could feel her hips moving impatiently under his, so Nick dragged his mouth down her belly, trailing his fingertips along her skin so lightly she squirmed away. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her sweats and pulled as he continued to move toward her center with his mouth. Looking up, Nick bit back a groan as he realized that she either had removed her panties before going to bed or really hadn't had anything on the night before. Thanking her earlier ministrations for allowing him enough self control to keep from burying himself in her without any further foreplay, Nick skimmed his chin against crisp black curls and down the inside of her thigh, hearing her moaning louder above him.

Sweats safely around her ankles, he ran the backs of his hands along the insides of her legs, detouring over the sensitive skin behind her knees until his fingers joined his mouth at her center. Parting the curls with one hand, he ran his tongue along the tangy wetness hidden there and felt her entire body jump. Her hands spasmed frantically in his hair and she cried out his name in a hoarse voice that made his cock throb. "I wanna make you come, Sara," he breathed against her clit, letting his mouth barely brush her.

She was practically sobbing now and implored him, "Please, Nick, oh, God, please, oooahh..."

He put his mouth to her clit and slid one finger, then two into the wetness below, feeling her muscles clench around him as he quickly built a rhythm that seemed to work for her, because it didn't take long to feel her ripple around his fingers and hear her cries become an uncontrolled, gasping wail.

Nick coaxed her back down before sliding up her body to see her face. Her eyes, wide open wounds of defenseless pleasure, sought his earnestly and she clutched him to her. Nick could feel her shaking. Shocked, he wondered for a minute what had happened to the sexually aggressive tigress who'd jumped him in his truck the night before.

"What's the matter, sweetheart? I thought you liked that." Nick looked into her shattered expression with confusion.

Her voice was unsteady. "I loved that. You're wonderful. It's just... what am I going to do when you leave?"

Nick was struggling to catch up, and he knew the hurt came through in his shocked response, "But I don't want to leave!"

She shook her head. "Not now, later. This is too good to be true. Nothing this good ever lasts in my life."

Nick battled between rage and empathy. Rage at the people in her past who had done nothing but come and go; and complete comprehension of the sentiment with which he himself was so painfully familiar. He pressed his lips to her forehead and gathered his thoughts before speaking.

"Sara, look at me." She complied, fighting the tears that threatened to leak from her eyes. "I love you, Sara. I want to wake up with you every day and go to sleep with you every night. I'm not leaving, Sara. I'm not going anywhere without you." His confidence faltered and he looked into her eyes, slightly panicked. "Unless you want me to leave?"

Sara threw her arms around him, hugging him fiercely. "Never. I'm sorry I'm such a mess. I don't know what you've done to me, Nick. I'm never this needy and emotional." She shook her head as if waking herself up, then looked down at her own naked form and him, still mostly in his pajamas, and let out a soft chuckle. "I sense an imbalance in the Force, young Skywalker."

Nick raised his eyebrow. "Did you just use a Star Wars quote to tell me to take my clothes off?"

"Nick, if you've known me this many years and somehow missed the fact that I'm a gigantic nerd, you're dumb as a post."

Nick laughed. "Dumb as a post? All right, Geek Princess, that was a declaration of war!" His fingers waggled along her sides until she was giggling and shoving him away. Nick covered her laughing mouth with his own. "You have such a beautiful smile."

She smiled even more broadly. "I love your laugh lines. I love the fact that you have laugh lines. You're gorgeous, Nick." He felt himself blush, and couldn't bring himself to shake off her compliment when he saw the frank lust in her eyes. "You're gorgeous, and I want to see you naked."

His answer was muffled by her yanking his shirt over his head. "I want to do this right, Sara. I want you to know I'm serious about us." It was getting hard to talk the way she was trailing her fingers over his chest. His hands came up automatically to cup her breasts as she hovered over him. "I just want to make sure we're not rushing in to anything, oooohhh." Her lips found his nipples and her hands were at the waistband of his pants, running back and forth along his abdomen and brushing very slightly against the tip of his erection. Coherent thought was rapidly deserting him and before he could stop himself Nick blurted out, "Sara, I want to marry you."

She froze and looked up at his shocked face. Something she saw there must have satisfied her, because she moved her hand down to enclose his erection and said, "Nicholas Stokes, you'd better have condoms in that nightstand."

"Mmrgh." Her naked form bent over him as she divested him of his pants and ran her hand up over his penis. Nick slapped his hand over toward the bedside table until he found the drawer pull, frantically fumbling for the unopened box of condoms he'd stashed in a fit of optimism a few days ago, and mutely handed her the entire box.

Sara was laughing at him as she tore open the top, removed a plastic square, and extracted a rubber. Holding the condom to one side, she bent and took him into her mouth, letting her tongue run up and down the length of his shaft. Nick's eyes rolled back, "God, Sara."

She withdrew her mouth, sheathed him quickly in the rubber, positioned him just at her opening, and stopped. Nick was panting and his hands were fluttering over her body as he tried desperately not to thrust.

"Nick. Look at me, Nick."

His eyes did their best to focus on her face. She bent to kiss him gently on the mouth, pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, and said, "I love you, Nick."

As she finished the sentence, she began to lower herself onto him. Once he was fully inside her, they both stopped. Nick felt his entire body trembling at the incredible tightness and depth of her. Unable to stay still any longer, he wrapped his arms around her back, pulled her down so they were face to face, and began to thrust up into her body with short, hard strokes. One hand went to her breast, the other to her face, and he fought to maintain eye contact.

Sara was balancing herself with her hands on either side of his head, and started to rotate her hips in time with Nick's thrusts. They were both moaning and Nick felt himself start to speed up, felt his control slipping, so he slipped the hand on her breast down between them, feeling her clit beneath his fingers and himself sliding in and out of her.

He felt sweat break out all over his body and noted with gratitude that her moans were getting louder and her body was starting to clench down on him. He pressed harder with his hand, gritted his teeth and held on just long enough to feel her spasms begin before shutting his eyes and letting go with a flurry of rough, deep thrusts that made her wail and him groan loudly. All the blood seemed to leave his head in a rush, and he collapsed back on the pillow, gasping and pulling her down with him.

Minutes ticked by and Nick found he couldn't speak, so he finally put his hand on her cheek to bring her eyes to his and simply looked at her. In a way, it was more intimate than their lovemaking. He fought the desire to turn away from the incredible softness of her gaze, from the total acceptance he was finding in those beautiful, warm, sad brown eyes which seemed deeper and more open the longer he looked into them.

Eventually words came back to him, and Nick found himself saying, "Every time we're together, I feel more and more naked."

"I know what you mean." She didn't avert her gaze, despite the pink that he could see rising in her faintly freckled cheeks. "This is what I've been afraid of for years, but it feels safer than I would ever have imagined. You make me feel safe, Nick. No one has ever done that before."

He moved his hand to tangle in her hair, his thumb against her lips. "I love you, Sara."

She nodded, and they stayed as they were for as long as they could, maintaining their connection until they both fell asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Fourteen

XXXX

An hour later, they woke up damp, naked, and tangled together like a pretzel, sated and happy. Nick was hungry but ignoring the urge for huevos rancheros, if for no other reason than that he didn't want to let go of this moment. Sara's sharp chin was jabbing his chest somewhat, but her hand was stroking his abdomen in lazy circles, toying with the sparse hair below his navel.

Her sleepy voice sounded amused. "So how is it that a guy with your dark hair and eyes has, like, no body hair?"

Nick smiled. "My grandmother was Mexican. Mexican guys aren't typically all that furry."

"Yeah, but that makes you, what, a quarter Mexican? I'm not buying it, Nick." She tipped her head up to smirk at him. "I think you're just a big old metrosexual and you wax your chest."

Nick fought a blush. "A metrosexual? What the hell are you talking about?"

Sara snorted. "You should never play poker, Nick. You can't lie worth a damn. You do! You wax your chest!"

Red-faced, Nick rolled her over and shut her up with a kiss. When her laughter had subsided and he had moved his mouth to the sensitive spot he'd found just under her ear, he whispered, "I admit nothing." He paused as he trailed his tongue along her throat to add, "But I can let it grow back in if you want." Her giggles resonated through her chest as he resumed his exploration of her breasts, which led to more moaning, which led to another delay in making breakfast.

XXXX

They hadn't managed to leave the bed yet, although they both admitted to being pretty hungry and Nick knew that one or both of them would have to emerge from their happy little cocoon eventually and procure food. At the moment, they'd changed the configuration of their nest so that their heads were pillowed on opposite ends of the bed and they were taking turns giving each other foot massages while they talked.

Still basking in post-coital bliss, Nick shyly ventured an apology and finally addressed the elephant in the room. "I'm sorry about the way I sprung the whole marriage thing on you before. I've been following my gut all week, you know, just speaking right from the heart, and sometimes things come out of my mouth which surprise me."

"Oh." Her hands froze over his instep.

"Sara, hang on, I didn't say I didn't mean it. I just never imagined myself proposing that way – I wanted to do something a little more formal, or at least something we can tell people about when they ask." He paused for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. "And now that I think about it, you never answered me anyway!"

Sara relaxed, and smiled at him, "Well, it wasn't exactly a question." He nudged her with his foot and glared. She searched his eyes for a long moment before Nick had to break her gaze to kiss the arch of her foot, which made her smile again. "Tell you what. How about we don't consider that a proposal?"

Nick found it was his turn to be confused. "What do you mean?"

"How about we just think of that as a declaration of intent." Off his smile and raised eyebrow, she continued. "No time line, no specifics, just a general picture. Later on, you can do something more 'formal' if you still want to."

"_If_ I still want to?"

One shoulder lifted in a diffident shrug and she focused her gaze on his foot as she kneaded the heel. "Look, I know I'm damaged goods. Things have been great, but every serious relationship I've ever had has ended because I'm too intense for the guy I'm with. I'm not saying I think that's what'll happen with us, but, well, my track record kind of speaks for itself."

Nick flipped around so he was on his belly next to her, propped himself up on his elbows and regarded her seriously. "Well, you've met my track record. Hell, there's a LVPD case file on my track record. I think we've both been around enough to know there are no guarantees, I just want us to..." He though for a moment, searching for the right words, and found them from somewhere way back in his childhood. "... I want us to have hope and faith in each other. Maybe that's corny, but it's the best way I can explain it. I just don't want us to start this expecting it to fail."

She nodded with shining eyes and sealed the promise with a kiss, which quickly escalated into more kisses, which led to another impassioned fumbling at the nightstand drawer.


	15. Chapter 15

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Fifteen

XXXX

Saturday Evening

A ringing cell phone woke Nick from sleep. Eyes closed, he searched with one hand, captured the phone, flipped it open, and mumbled, "Stokes."

A long pause, long enough to wake him up. His voice was a bit more awake when he said, "Hello?"

Someone cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number."

_Crap_. "Grissom?"

Grissom's voice was tighter than piano wire. "Yes. I'm sorry, I'll try again later. I was trying to reach Sara."

Nick thought quickly. "Must have pressed the wrong button." _Or, like an idiot, I just answered Sara's phone. _

The man was clearly trying to restrain himself but remained civil. "Must have. I'll try her again."

"See you tomorrow night."

"Yeah." The line went dead.

Nick frantically shook Sara's shoulder. "Wake up, Sara. Grissom's trying to call you and I just picked up your phone by accident."

The one eye which had opened to his shaking, clamped shut again and she groaned in frustration. "God _damn_ it."

"Yeah. He made me promise not to rub his nose in it if things worked out between us. Now I feel like a total asshole."

"He made you _what_?" Her building tirade was interrupted by her cell phone ringing in Nick's hand. "Give me that," she clearly restrained herself from adding more colorful language, "phone."

She snapped, "Sidle."

Nick tried to casually maneuver himself so he could hear Grissom's side of the conversation, but Sara shoved him and shot him a dirty look.

"What? Grissom, it's my night off. ... You're the one who keeps telling me to get a life. ... Ugh, a decomp?" Sara got out of bed and started to pace – naked, a move that Nick found his eyes drawn to with alacrity. "Don't you have Greg and Warrick in with you tonight? ... Incidental find while processing a shootout at a crack house, eh?" Nick could hear Sara's tone and manner change as she got interested in the case. He flopped back on the bed and pulled a pillow over his face; he was about to spend the rest of his night off alone while Grissom worked a crime scene with his woman.

Which was why his head about snapped off his neck when he heard her say, "You're right; that sounds like a complicated scene. Give us a chance to grab some food and Nick and I can both be there." Did she want to get him killed? He started waving his hands in front of her face and shaking his head. Sara pursed her mouth at him and narrowed her eyes before answering Grissom. "That's right. What I do on my own time is my own business. You've made it perfectly clear that you don't want to be involved in my personal life, therefore I'm going to play by your rules. So, I'm asking you: Do we need Nick at the scene as well?"

Wow. So his girlfriend (_fiancée_? A little voice teased) had bigger balls than he did. That was a humbling thought. Of course, he thought hastily, she also had a ten-year personal history with Grissom, but still. Damn.

She snapped the phone shut smartly and turned to face him with her hands on her hips. "_You_ promised not to rub it in his face. I did not. I have no intention of expending unnecessary effort trying to hide our relationship. I'm not going to grope you in the locker room or start grab-assing at crime scenes, because that's unprofessional, but I'm not going to sneak around, either. We work with some of the best investigators in the country. It would insult their intelligence to try to conceal evidence. They'll figure it out when they figure it out." Her face brightened. "We probably won't even need to tell them."

Nick shook his head at her and chuffed out a laugh. "Shower?"

"Probably a good idea. I don't want their first clue that we're involved to be us showing up rumpled and stinking like sex."

That made him relax into real laughter and pull her loosely into his arms. His nose went to her hair and his arms around her back. She pressed against his chest and snuggled contentedly closer. After a few deep breaths, he pulled back, kissed her lightly on the mouth, and led her by the hand to the shower.

"Want to conserve water?"

He didn't even have to look to see her roll her eyes. "We can't stay in there all day, Nick."

"Of course not. I'm only thinking of the environment. Plus, I'm sure you have some hard-to-reach places. We need to get you really clean."

Their playful banter continued as they stepped under the spray and took just a few extra minutes to get "really clean" before piling into Nick's truck to stop by Sara's apartment for her kit and clean clothes, and drive through a Tex-Mex place that had vegetarian burritos on their way to the crime scene. Sara grinned around a mouthful of rice and peppers, "You know, the fact that I can eat with you on our way to investigate a decomposed body is a perk of dating a CSI that I never really considered." Nick just laughed.

As they approached the flashing lights and the crowd of onlookers, their joking diminished and they both slipped into work mode. Nick found himself slightly amazed at how seamless the transition was. Sara reached over to squeeze his hand once before they got out of the truck, and then they were standing in front of Grissom with their jackets on and their kits in their hands.

The initial moment of awkwardness passed quickly as both men took their cues from Sara's calm professionalism. Whatever would need to be discussed later, would happen later. Right now, there was a body to photograph and a scene to process.


	16. Chapter 16

"Magnificent Lasagne and Artificial Worms"

by Kristafied

Canon, what canon? Set post Grave Danger; mostly diverges from canon at that point.

Sara/Nick Friendship, becomes Snickers

Rating: M (for language and eventual smut)

A/N: Not sure if the timeline of Nick coming back to work and Warrick getting married matches up with how I have it here, but let's just roll with it for now. Also, I've never been to Vegas, so all locations are completely made up.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't have all this debt from grad school.

Chapter Sixteen

XXXXX

Four hours later

"Nick, Sara," Grissom's voice broke the companionable silence in which they'd been working for the last half-hour. Nick looked up from the far corner of the dilapidated attic room. Grissom looked exhausted. "I need one of you to stay here and one to go back to the morgue – Doc Robbins is about to start the autopsy on your vic."

The body, in an advanced state of decomposition the smell of which could only have gone unnoticed in a location such as this, had been dressed in the remnants of clothes suitable for a preteen girl. Next to the body, Sara had found a purse with a Powerpuff girls wallet in it, picked clean of money and credit cards but containing a Henderson Junior-Senior High School ID card. Sapphira Jackson. It was impossible to tell from the corpse's face if she was the pretty, smiling girl in the picture.

Sara stood and stretched her back, making eye contact with Nick. He nodded. "I'll stay here, Sar. I'm almost done anyway, I think. Just let me know what you find out when I get back to the lab."

"Sure. Here, give me your evidence so far; I'll log everything in." Carrying a half- empty box, she stepped gingerly around the broken boards as she approached; they had collected almost all of the detritus of hard-core drug use that had been scattered around the room, but the going was still treacherous. Nick loaded her up with sealed bags until they were both chuckling at the outrageous pile. He shook his head at her as she grumbled, "I've got it, I've got it." Sara peeked over the bags at him, her expression suddenly serious again. "I want to find out who she is."

Nick nodded and brushed his knuckles over hers. "If you want to take the truck, I'll catch a ride back with one of the officers." Nick had noticed that the uniformed cops, still stung that he'd been taken right out from under their noses, had been keeping up a stern perimeter around him since he'd been back in the field.

Sara had opened her mouth to respond, when Grissom piped up from across the room. She started and Nick saw her lips quirk guiltily; they'd both forgotten he was still there. "I'm heading back to the lab now, Sara, you can ride with me."

His tone brooked no argument, and Nick re-pocketed his keys and shrugged at Sara. She turned and carefully made her way to Grissom at the top of the stairs. He plucked the box from her hands and trudged downstairs without another word. Nick watched as Sara planted her hands on her hips and glared at Grissom's departing back before clambering noisily down the steps after him. "Griss, give me that, damn it. I _had_ it."

Nick chuckled and turned back to photographing and collecting the final corner of the scene, reflecting absently on the strange and wonderful turn his life had taken, and wondering how long she would want him to wait before he proposed again. He was deep into his plans for a more elaborate event when he heard the spark of Grissom's engine as they drove away, never dreaming that when next he saw Sara, his life would be turned upside down yet again.

THE END OF PART ONE.

A/N: This story will be continued in Part Two, this time from Sara's POV. Thanks to everyone who sent such lovely reviews, and I hope you'll keep reading!


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